BMW Vision Next 100 Futuristic Moving Wheel Arches and Dash in the Flesh

In our first coverage of the car, we only had some official videos from BMW. All the stuff they were showing seemed almost too good to be true. However, it's even more amazing in real life.

We have two videos for you guys, one coming from a Facebook user and the second from German magazine Auto Bild.

The first cool feature we want to point out are the wheel arches, which are made up of several hundred of geometric surfaces arranged concentrically. It's difficult to explain what's going on, but the overall effect is that the entire body turns instead of just the wheels (which you can't see). BMW seems to be obsessed with cars that have moving bodies, as the GINA concept Chris Bangle designed over a decade ago had a flexible fabric body.

The dashboard of the car is covered in little triangles. They flip to show their red undersides, thus alerting you to incoming danger. We think the designers were inspired by the octopus and chameleon, which change color not only to match the environment but also according to their mood.

Like the i8 Spider concept and indeed the Audi RSQ that people keep comparing it to, the BMW Vision 100 is both autonomous and a drivable car. It's not a novel idea, but the way in which the steering wheel tucks into the dash is nothing short of stunning. The mechanism also appears to be much faster than in the press videos.

Of course, we've seen butterfly doors before, even quad ones. The way in which the Vision Next 100 closes up is undeniably cool, but the Tesla Model X, which is a production car, does it even better with its falcon doors.