It produced something similar for the 1998 show, called the Rocket, again using that Korean V8 but with styling more akin to a pre-war Auto Union grand prix racer – although “we won’t go too near the stand, because these cars often disappoint when you get close”.
If they had been unconventional in the 1990s, Sbarro and Rinspeed both really let loose in the 2000s, as exemplified by the latter firm’s millennium duo: a retro hot-rod pick-up truck with an integrated crane, called the Tatooo.com (huh?), and “an odd underwater scooter that looks like it’s from a B-grade Hollywood sci-fi movie”, called the Breathing Observation Bubble.
Aquatic machinery became a bit of a theme for Rinspeed, as shown by 2004’s Splash. Creating “a tidal wave of interest” (ahem), this was a chunky roadster that could hydraulically transform into not merely a boat but a hydrofoil, elevating it 60cm above the water. And fuelled by compressed natural gas for good measure.
Having made “Dick Dastardly’s next car” in 2003 (“good old Franco is still taking the drugs, it seems”, we joked), Sbarro in 2007 created a six-wheeled pick-up truck by adding an electrically driven third axle to the… Citroën C-Crosser. Obviously.
In 2009, Rinspeed presented the iChange (everything new had to be ‘i’ back then, didn’t it?), which could alter its shape depending on how many people were inside – although funnily enough it was “cunningly perched on an elevated stand to keep its shape-shifting qualities hidden from the general public”.
