How about just picking up that car from the corner of the office room, taking it out, unfolding it and driving it back home? The new sports car is almost like a toy car coming to life.

A sports car that can be folded into half is the most innovative creation of a young 22-year-old British designer, Daniel Bailey. He states that his creation has been inspired by the Peugeot 908 and Lamborghini Murcielago.

According to Bailey, this sexy, sleek and mean looking car goes up on its nose, allowing the back wheels to slide under the car on two rollers. This way, it becomes half its size and makes parking easy. Obviously, people will have to get out of the car before it can be folded.

Bailey says that this car will run on hydrogen fuel or electricity and he came up with the concept of a folding car, in order to take care of the two main problems that most modern cities face; that of pollution and population. The lack of parking space in major cities due to the large number of cars is a big issue and the ability to fold a car up to 50% of its original size when parking, alleviates the need for creating even more parking space.

This design has been submitted by Bailey in a competition held by Peugeot to create a concept car that is designed to evolve perfectly in the cities of the future with large population and huge number of cars; while including aspects such as environmental awareness, economic efficiency, social harmony and interactive mobility.

A similar prototype of a lightweight electric folding car model is said to be under creation by scientists led by Bill Mitchell, professor of architecture, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT.) This stackable and foldable car is named, “City Car.” MIT says this car can be mass produced and rented by commuters following a business model of shared-use. It can be folded and stacked just like grocery carts either at subway stations or other sites. The key to this concept is said to lie in the wheels design. (more…)