When you travel a long distance to see someone, you want the ‘real thing’ when you get there, right?

You want all the sensory action you have been dreaming about on the long trip to see her. I was thinking quite a bit about the BMW GINA on my drive to Atlanta in my Subaru Legacy GT — with its insufficient A/C making me feel like a honey-baked ham after five hours in the car.

I pondered: Would the surfaces be moving, or would they be set in a certain pose? Might there be someone on hand to shift her hood slit open, and blink the headlights a little bit?

Or someone to make the doors open and the tail-fin rise to its extra-tall downforce setting?

I was thinking so much about the BMW GINA that I thought I saw her on the highway going the other way! Nope, it was the BMW Z4 — a car whose style really does borrow much from the GINA concept of 2006.

But…. innuendo festival continuing here… when I arrived in Atlanta six hours later, I found not real-life 2006 BMW Concept GINA, but 2001 BMW GINA full-size model.

I was extremely disappointed. Granted, many concepts are like full-size models, in truth. They have old engines and some old platform underneith, if any at all.

But this one, in its shoddy static state, was a HUGE letdown.

The key feature of the GINA Light Visionary Roadster is her movable surfaces.

Not only did these surfaces not move, they are clearly fabric wrapped over a hard clay model base — offering none of the grace the 2006 GINA delivers.

The wheels are from the old Z8, the brakes are fake. Everything is fake on this 2001 model. The headlights are ridiculously fake.

But my disappointment? It felt very, very real.

 

What is somewhat interesting is that it took five years to pioneer the moving surfaces that eventually appeared on the 2006 concept car, versus the 2001 model shown here.

 

 

2001 BMW GINA Light Visionary Roadster – Full-Scale Model

 Dream Cars BMW GINA

 

DREAM CARS runs through September 7th at Atlanta’s High Museum of Art.

• Plan your trip now to see these one-of-a-kind machines up close and in real life!

• http://www.high.org/Art/Exhibitions/Dream-Cars-Innovative-Design-Visionary-Ideas.aspx

The DREAM CARS companion hard-cover book offers outstanding descriptions, insights and photography of the collection – it is available now world-wide via the High Museum shop link below.

• http://museumshop.high.org/collections/dream-cars/products/dream-cars

Atlana Dream Cars Showcase – 1970 Ferrari 512S Modulo by Pininfarina