How Do You Say “Grasshopper” in Taiwanese?

It's a common known fact that the Asians are very much in tune with nature. That not only shows up in the way they live their life, but also in most of their designs, starting with architecture and continuing with car design.

It wasn't long ago that we saw a very interesting concept from Mazda, one that drew inspiration heavily from leaf shapes. Now, in order to confirm that suspicion, we just got word of the Insecta Concept, a design study by a student from Taiwan called Shao Yung Yeh.

This design was created for the 2007-2008 academic exchange with the Kunsthochschule Berlin and it's all sorts of strange. But not strange in a bad way, just different from anything we've seen before. Surely, this design pattern will pretty soon gain acclaim in the automotive world.

The student's goal was to create a futuristic looking vehicle that was also easy to use and afforded personal mobility. He was quoted as saying “Taking inspirations from nature, the exterior expresses the characteristics of the friendly insects, such as grasshoppers – agile, lightweight and green”.

We took a long look at some of these pictures and while we got the vibes of a 19th century carriage, it's still an interesting concept, mainly because of its simplicity and overall aesthetics. The car uses independent wheel suspension, similar in design and function to that in insects' legs and independent electric motors in each wheel in order to maximize performance and interior space.

At least in theory, the car seems to be rather feasible and environmentally-friendly while achieving a futuristic look, but please bear in mind that it's still a concept. There are still a lot of details to smooth out. For example, we're pretty sure not everybody will embrace the bright green color pattern or the fact that it's a single-seater vehicle.

Still, grasshoppers seem to be a very unlikely but cool source for an automobile's design.