FRANKFURT 2009: BMW's Vision

The name's a bit of a mouthful, but it's one delicious piece of automotive art and a real jaw-dropper when seen in the flesh. Or in the aluminium and carbonfibre as the case may be.

The Vision is also another concept that proves 'green' and 'performance' aren't mutually exclusive and that hybrids can be very, very sexy.

The Vision uses a dinky 1.5-litre turbo-diesel three-pot engine (essentially BMW's twin-huffer in-line six cut in half. True.) married with two electric motors (one driving each axle) for a total kilowatt count of 262. Just like Audi's E-Tron, BMW say the Vision will streak (in an environmentally friendly way, of course) from 0-100km/h in 4.8 seconds, but the Vision will leave the Audi E-Tron in its wake on the autobahn with a top speed at 250km/h. Now there's a comparison test we'd love to bring you, so stay tuned to Wheels in 2019 for our clash of the electric teutons...

I'll let the styling speak for itself, but a BMW designer did openly confirm you're looking at some future design cues for BMW road cars. Exactly which ones he wouldn't let slip, but the front end and headlight treatment is a good bet for BeeEm sportscars in the years to come.

Back to the nuts and bolts, the Vision is built around an aluminium spaceframe (total weight is 1395kg) and uses light-sensitive polycarbonate glass for the roof and plenty of lightweight carbonfibre for various components.

A six-speed dual-clutch gearbox transfers power to the rear wheels and the Vision can run on solely diesel power, electric or a combination of both, with a total range of around 640km before needing a 45 minute recharge. If this is a (cough) vision of the future, we like what we see.