Concorde 20+ Is the Digital Love Child of the McLaren F1 and the Concorde Supersonic Jet

When the McLaren F1 came around in the early 1990s, the Concorde was the fastest means of civilian transportation, bar none. It made the London-New York trip in about three and a half hours, splicing the air at Mach 2. The outrageously fast car followed suit, blasting the competition at 243 mph (391 kph). It was – and still is – the world's fastest naturally aspirated production car.

One of its most praised qualities was the impeccably distributed weight between the front and rear axles and, transversally, between the left and right sides. The McLaren hypersonic land missile was tweaked to perfection by the genius of Gordon Murray, who put the driver in the middle of the cockpit. (Gordon’s latest piston creation, the T.50, is a worthy successor of the fabulous F1 from three decades ago).

Well, the superlatives that adorn the F1 supercar can easily be cast upon the Concorde supersonic jet built with the conjured efforts of British and French engineers. Unfortunately, two decades ago, in 2003, a tragic crash grounded the famous delta-wing jet forever, leaving an aura of magnificence to levitate in search of a body in which to reincarnate.

Leave the magic to the wizard keyboard of a pixel sorcerer (and Ford designer) residing in Koln, Germany. The automotive artist has transplanted the spirit of the aircraft into a car vision like no other: a three-passenger shooting brake with two doors and two rows of seats. It doesn’t take the computing power of a NASA space program to see that the interior architecture calls for one front seat for the driver and a pair in the back.

Like the original Concorde aircraft, the "Concorde 20+" shooting break is a study in aerodynamic excellence, with a retractable element that decreases drag. Just like the McLaren F1, the front doors of this virtual concept car open butterfly-style, while the smaller rear ones are the traditional ‘suicide’ style.

Christopher Giroux is the French artist who envisioned this dream car (he roams the social media realms under the chrisgx13 call sign), and by the looks of it, it is an EV clad with ornaments and design elements that pay a profound homage to the Concorde airplane. Apart from the emblems on the front fenders and rear – shaped like the famous jet, as seen from above (or below) – the taillights nod to the exhaust nozzles of the Mach-2 airliner.

Passengers aboard the superfast plane were spoiled with ample seating, plenty of leg and shoulder room, and high-class in-flight treats. The Concorde 20+ offers the same vast accommodation for both the passengers and the driver, but one question arises from the photos: where’s the cargo space?

Behind the rear seats, the volume is virtually non-existent, and the frunk – I’ll stick to my EV assumption – can only hold a pair of hand luggage cases. Not that it would matter much; the car is not intended to make more sense than any of the other wild concept cars that paid their dues to various legends of aviation.

There’s a mathematical precision in the placement of the driver right at the intersection of the diagonals, at the very center of the car, that would generally lead us to believe that the dynamic qualities of the Concorde 20+ are not to be overlooked. Then again, the whole idea of the vehicle – a shooting brake – doesn’t back the hypothesis, so we’ll leave it up to your imagination to make the best of this fantasy car.

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