Exotic Concept Cars to Blow Your Mind!

For a long time after we first saw this little luxury city car in 2010, Aston kept telling the world it was a concept only. But enough people (Aston customers, mostly) were interested to convince Aston to build these weird Toyota iQ-based gas sippers in 2011. Makes a nice complement to the V12 DB9 in the garage, maybe.

Lots of concepts in the past decade have had a bit of the sport-ute about them, and this idea to resurrect the Lagonda name was one of them. Unlike the Cygnet, no one jumped at the chance to have this monstrosity, with its massive grille and sneaky-looking headlights, in their very own driveways. It was shown at the 2009 Geneva Motor Show and hasn’t been heard from since.

All-electric and all-amazing, the e-Tron concept rolled quietly onto the stand at the 2009 Frankfurt Auto Show. Without the need for air to cool a hot engine, the grilles and intakes could be strafed with chrome. Parts of this car, both design- and engineering-wise, will make it into Audis that will hit the streets soon, even if this car never does.

The age of the SUV is not over, and Bentley wants its share of the uber-luxury truck market. This high-riding Bentley was at the 2012 Geneva Auto Show, and Bentley seemed pretty sure it was going to build it, but there weren’t any production or delivery dates announced.

This is a show-stopper of a concept, the kind of display that draws cameras from pockets and poses for the flashbulbs like a Hollywood newcomer. It first was seen at the 2009 Frankfurt Auto Show, and I did the paparazzi dance around the futuristic hybrid at the Los Angeles Auto Show later that same year.

Named for a mythical goddess, the Artemis is set to beat the other luxury SUVs to market in the summer of 2012. New British car maker Eterniti says it will take orders for this Super SUV, as it calls it, for fall delivery. Tellingly, the first Eterniti showrooms will be in Asia.

This car debuted at the 2010 Paris Motor Show and continued to wow showgoers the world over for the rest of the year. I saw it in person at the Los Angeles Auto Show in November of that year, and like everyone else, I was amazed by its forward-thinking design and engineering. Elements developed for this car will be used in real-world Jaguars of the near future, but for now the car will not be produced for the street.

I include the Jota only for its mythic status. If ever there was a concept car, the Jota was it. An engineer at Lamborghini created his ultimate Miura — already an ultimate car — in 1970 as a design and engineering experiment. The car was supposed to be scrapped, but it was instead sold, and then tragically crashed by some d-bag who didn’t know what kind of bull he was riding.

Everybody’s doing it these days, so Lamborghini figured it might as well try building a family-friendly crossover vehicle, too. It says this is an SUV, and I’m sure at least a couple of them will get dirty, but it’s really a daily driver for the six-figure car set.

Depending on who you ask, Maserati is pretty certain to actually build this concept for real-world driving. Maserati itself, however, placed it firmly in the concept column when it debuted at the 2012 North American International Auto Show. Chalk this one up to new friend Jeep, since they’re all riding under Fiat’s banner these days.

“Sesto Elemento” is Italian for “Sixth Element,” which all you chemistry nerds know is carbon. Lamborghini used so much carbon fiber in this concept, I’m surprised trees can still breathe. The lightweight material means the car only weighs 2200 pounds, and with its V10 engine, it could theoretically reach 62 mph from a standstill in two and a half seconds. Theoretically.