...surely?

I'm pretty sure that in th elate 60s or early 70s there was an item on Blue Peter about a French car that did pretty much the same thing

...but increases let's-beat-the-crap-out-of-the-smart-arse-with-the-stupid-car rage.

And if I was driving one, i reckon i'd get uptight with the little moving robot head, especially if it said "calm down". "I am frikkin' calm, damnit!"

Maybe I need some sedatives...

shame you wont be squeezing into tight spaces with that door opening about 5 ft infront of it....or if you turn the main bit the the side, im sure you'd meet a friendly tree / lamp post with your door, or if your lucky a passing cyclist or pedestrian

Nice...now you can be that twat that parks in the space between cars that's there so the two cars can actually get out of their parking spaces...that Dusty Bin wannabe dashboard appendage is gonna get lots of use destressing those drivers when you do!

I distinctly remember a car performing this exact same sideways parking on Tomorrow's World in the 90's, alongside a car with triangular wheels which could ascend stairs with ease.

This can only end bad when you have PR like: "You can go everywhere without worrying about your driving skills." Makes me wonder what sort of nightmares we'll have to put up with once people who supposedly have no skills actually drive it (not that people with driving licenses are complete saints either).

Road rage against other drivers might go down, but I can see the urge rising in ripping the head of that little nodding, smiling robot off each time it says: "It looks like you're trying to park your car. Would you like some help?"

All joking aside, as a concept it looks good, if only the parking can work smoothly and efficiently, and if it can maintain a decent speed on motorways. I can see that people would get annoyed at being overtaken by something from Mario Kart (wheels as bubbles? Never mind...). I can't imagine what a high speed impact would do for the driver though...

Clearly a babe magnet. Clarkson-esque knicker elastic snapping embodiment of throbbing manhood.

Well, it looks like the BMW Isetta et. al. are going to make a comeback! Looks like an Isetta crossed with children's toys.

Actually, its a good thing that Nissan won't be releasing it. Do you how fast Linux would be loaded on that car and the robot would be playing Twisted Sister?

That's not a word.

Where's the language nazi icon?

Wow, a car that can; stop, slowly turn it's body 90 degrees, then slowly turn it's wheels 90 degrees and squeeze in to a space... that anyone else would have just driven up to and parallel parked in in 20 seconds.

Was hardly the smallest parking space known to man in the vid!

"It looks like you're trying to park your car. Would you like some help?"

"NO I'M TRYING TO RAMRAID THE OFFY"

"Tesburys do a GREAT discount when you buy 6 or more bottles of wine why don't you let me drive you there or should I just call the police?"

"I don't think that crowbar will he...."

That video was hilarious! The car looked like one of Willy Wonka's inventions!

"It's just an automobile"

"No, it's a Wonkamobile!" (or variations on that spelling).

But if the wheels can turn like they do, then with a few more lines of code they could have turned the whole car on its vertical axis anyway just by turning the wheels into a circle. The rotating cab is nifty and neat, but almost totally unnecessary. I included the word 'almost' because a rotating square will be slightly larger than a non-rotating square. But hardly worth the extra trouble.

Since it can already turn all four wheels, what's the point of swivelling the body? It could just set all the wheels at 45 degrees and rotate about its own axis.

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/jeep-hurricane2.htm

-A.

So you guys realize that concept cars are not about getting new ideas/models out first right? They're for exploring design concepts... "If I build a podule putter with robo distractor on the dash, how many extra airbags will I need for the extra crashes?"

Man and I worry about postits on my monitor distracting me and causing eye strain! ;-)

E.

(Oh and to the anonymous twat who said the French did it in 60s/70s... you do realize that Renault bought Nissan back when they were flirting with bankruptcy right? So still a French company technically. ;-)

Once again Milton Keynes is the city of the future. Drivers round here have been doing that for years.

Oh yeah... It's the Czech word for "beer"!

Jedne pivo prozim!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWXU1Aar6eM

Sorted.

I guess it took many beer drinking sessions to come up with this great concept.

It's going to be a problem deciding where the front and rear license plate fits. OTOH, try clamping this thing - I'm sure we could hack it to start wheel swivelling as soon as someone tries :-)

I think they must have crossed the Styx and bumped into Ezekiel chapter 1 verses 15 - 20 All things are possible as long as you keep taking The Tablets!

"...should you be fleeing from the law and encounter a roadblock - to do any of those tricky handbrake turns, either. Just stop, spin and drive away."

Looking at the traverse speed of that podule, I'd say it'd be best to stick with the handbrake turns and J-turns.

I'm not a trained police marksman or combat-hardened soldier but I could easily shoot the driver 10 times in the time it would take to rotate the podule 180 degrees.

With a bolt action.

And stopping to change mags.

Paris Hilton angle? This is just the sort of stupid shit she'd want as a status symbol and to get her name in the papers again.

"Paris Hilton was again arrested for drunk driving when she was found driving her Nissan sideways through crowded Hollywood streets."

'cept she'd probably want the next model - the "Vino" - because beer is not posh enough for her...

Is this for real? Isn't pivo the word for beer in several Eastern European languages, such as Polish, Czeck, etc?