2007 Giugiaro VAD.HO Concept
As more and more attention is focused on hydrogen becoming the green fuel of thefuture, automakers are putting their best feet forward to come up with vehicles powered by the fuel. Some have chosen to fit their new technology in existing automobiles, like Ballard's NeCar fuel-cell vehicle, which is built around the Mercedes-Benz A-Class, or BMW, whose hydrogen internal combustion engine (ICE) has found its way under the hood of a modified 7-Series long wheelbase sedan. Auto enthusiasts are always excited to see vehicles that are as forward-thinking as the technology that powers them, such as GM's Hy-Wire. Looking at this latest concept vehicle is like looking into a crystal ball for a glimpse of the future a decade, or perhaps even two from now. Italian coachworks and engineering master Giugiaro (known from the firm ItalDesign) developed the VAD.HO hydrogen-powered sports car, which it showed at Geneva this year.
Approximately the length and width of a Ferrari 575 Maranello, theVAD.HO is a different take on what the future of sports cars might be. It might look to be a pure concept car, but this two-seater was actually designed to abide by international standards for crash and pedestrian testing. The wedge design of the front is in true Italian style with a low nose, filled with intake vents to cool the brakes and the engine. Narrow, triangular headlamps filled with LEDs flank a large hood scoop, which gets squeezed on both sides by bulging front fenders. The midsection of the car takes on an asymmetrical layout, with the driver and single passenger seated on the left and the engine on the right, and access to both via separate gullwing doors. The car is finished off with a Corvette-inspired “bluff” tail sporting a diffuser, trapezoidal tail pipes and narrow LED brakelights. Both ends of the car show off Giugiaro's new corporate logo, a simple, red “G”.
The cabin is the clearest reflection of Giugiaro's interest in aeronautics. The carseats two like most exotic sports machines but the passenger doesn't sit to the right of the driver, but rather, like a jet fighter he or she sits behind in tandem formation under an aerodynamic polycarbonate bubble dome. Because of the engine's offset location, Giugiaro was able to stretch the length of the cabin in order to give the rear passenger spacious quarters, which are comparable to that of a large luxury sedan.
But the links to air and space craft are even stronger in the way that the car is "piloted". Giugiaro decided to do away with conventional controls for the VAD.HO, replacing them with a new drive-by-wire system consisting of a pair of joysticks incorporating innovative grips attached to the seat's armrest. Every aspect of this cockpit is adjustable, from the distance of the joysticks to the driver's arm, to the height of the armrest, to the seat itself in order to fit the driver as best as possible. Both seats are fitted with four-point harnesses, but if the car should crash unique “umbrella” airbags deploy to surround and cushion both occupants.
Being a car designed for the future, the VAD.HO is filled with the typeof technologies that you'd expect to see in a science fiction movie. The driver sits in front of a console developed for aeronautic applications, which besides showing the vehicle speed and other important information, displays images from the side-mounted rear-view cameras. Cameras mounted at the front of the car provide visual displays for parking, as well as night vision; they also possess the ability to communicate with road infrastructures (i.e. intelligent highways) and other cars, as such technologies become available. The rear-seat passenger hasn't been neglected either, with two screens and a separate control joystick allowing him or her to see all the information that the driver sees, while two cameras, one mounted in the front of the cabin and another in the back, provide face-to-face communication.
To the right of the passenger cell is the VAD.HO'spropulsion unit, a V12 engine developed for BMW's Hydrogen 7. Giugiaro did not release any details regarding the output or range, but under the hood of the specially-built BMW 7-Series it makes 260 horsepower, has a range of 125 miles and the ability to hit 60 mph from standstill in nine and a half seconds. Also not mentioned is whether the engine retains the Hydrogen 7's ability to run on either hydrogen or premium unleaded, a vital technical feature which would give the VAD.HO the ability to run in areas where hydrogen is not available. Either way, if it were produced the hydrogen-powered VAD.HO would sit amongst the likes of the Tesla Roadster, as one of the world's cleanest sports cars.
The VAD.HO name is open to interpretation. When pronounced, it sounds like the name “Vado”, which is the industrial area where ItalDesign's HQ has been located since 1974. It's also a play on words. In Italian the verb “vado” translates to “I go,” but with the addition of the letter “H” (the elemental symbol for hydrogen), it translates (roughly) to the phrase “I go on hydrogen”.