Concept cars are meant to inspire, challenge, and elicit reactions from the automotive world. That usually translates to them being weird. And that is because the automakers are stretching the envelope of what’s practical and what can be imagined.
This no-boundaries approach has gifted us cars with powerful turbine engines, six wheels, a robotic assistant, and reinvented wheels. Some have drawn inspiration from nature and looked like nature, while others have been created to thrive in a futuristic environment where robots have overpowered mankind.
Mixed in this confusion is the interior of these cars. Most concept cars have not been famed for having the best-looking or practical interiors for decades. And that is the case with these ten. You can only be grateful that they never left the drawing board.
10 1980 Citroën Karin
Citroen has made a name for itself for producing some of the weirdest concept cars ever seen. The 1980 Citroen Karin is one petrolheads will never forget. The design team figured that picking a mix of colors was a waste of time. So, they decided to have everything in the car painted beige.
As if that was not enough, they shaped this three-seater marque as a pyramid. And once you get inside, you’d be mummified by the lackluster and weird interior. The driver sat right in the middle with no center console. That meant that all the controls had to be crammed on the steering column, making for one complex car to operate.
9 1982 Lancia Orca
Lancia knew how to build rally cars. But when it came to concept cars, the company performed worse than an Audi without Quattro. The 1982 Lancia Orca was one that didn’t leave a great taste in petrolhead’s mouths.
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This marque was built to be an aerodynamic sedan. On the outside, it looked cool and ahead of its time. However, the interior was a mess. Lancia went for colorful buttons that were splashed across the steering wheel. The digital gauge cluster was even more colorful and highly complex, ensuring no one would ever make sense of the information the car was trying to relay.
8 1983 Buick Questor
GM was also quite ambitious with its design when it came to concept cars back in the ‘80s. The Buick Questor, released in 1983, was their most ambitious project yet. This concept car was released five years before the Banshee. Its interior was thus very different.
The first, most noticeable oddity was the weird steering wheel with a big control panel at the center. And it had almost everything you needed to run the car, a jet fighter, and the Apollo II. There was a speaker, an air vent, headlight switch, washer switch, wipers switch, wipers speed control switch, and probably, hidden deep within the cluster, a self-destruct button.
7 1986 Oldsmobile Incas
The 1986 Oldsmobile Incas was built with aerodynamics in mind. It featured a massive glass roof and gullwing doors. The interior also got a lot of focus. But it was not in the right way.
The ’86 Oldsmobile Incas had an interior greatly inspired by K.I.T.T from the Knight Rider.
The steering wheel looked lifted straight from a fighter jet. And, in proper ‘80s style, it had a massive supply of buttons – around 40 to be precise. These controlled the gearbox, cruise control, and aircon.
6 1987 Pontiac Pursuit
The 1987 Pontiac Pursuit was released a year before the Banshee IV. Its interior was one of the craziest petrolheads were yet to see. It was also one of the ugliest and cheapest.
The whole interior looked like one big piece of cheap GM plastic. To make matters worse, GM decided to fit it with a host of buttons, enough to launch a nuclear missile. The buttons were 29, to be exact. The steering wheel looked carved out of a fighter jet with more buttons to add to the chaos. To try and create some visual separation, the buttons on the left were colored orange and the ones on the right blue.
5 1988 Pontiac Banshee IV
The 4th version of Pontiac’s famous Banshee concept left tongues wagging, as far as the exterior is concerned. The company did a great job creating a futuristic, elegant, and sleek-looking marque with interesting details such as an integrated rear wing.
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The interior, however, didn’t leave much to be desired. It was a massive pile of cheap, grey, GM plastic. GM then added four yellow buttons for some random colorization. The steering wheel was not left behind either. Twenty-three buttons were fitted within its tiny space.
4 1996 Mercedes-Benz F200 "Imagination"
Don’t get it wrong. The Mercedes F-Series has brought some of the coolest concept cars ever seen. The F2000 Imagination sits at the top of this table. The interior has a couple of interesting features. The first thing you’ll notice is the lack of a steering wheel and pedals. But it is not an autonomous car.
These two components have been replaced by joysticks mounted at the center console and the doors. Since there’s no steering wheel, Mercedes fit massive displays at the dashboard with cool features such as satnav and traffic lights recognition. But none of these were anywhere near practical.
3 2008 Citroën Hypnos
The crazy concept car interiors did not die in the ‘80s. About two decades later, Citroen bamboozled the world with another weird concept car, the 2008 Citroen Hypnos. It was designed to be a mid-size luxury crossover, with design features that can be found on the production Citroen C4 Aircross.
The 2008 Hypnos packed one of the most colorful interiors ever seen. The gauge cluster was bright red, the rear seats blue-purplish, and the front seats orange-yellow-green. The shape of the seats was also weird. There were slats along the base and triangles forming the seating surface.
2 2008 Renault Ondelios
2008 seemed like the year to revive weird concept cars. And Renault surely received the memo, yet another French automaker in the mix. The 2008 Renault Ondelios was launched as an SUV concept car. It looked strange on the exterior and stranger on the interior.
The gauge cluster and steering wheel looked odd. To make matters worse, the gauge cluster was transparent, surrounded by a leather dashboard and a massive gap on the right side. From that gap rose a wavy glass with extra information to display. It even had a keyboard integrated into the leather dashboard.
1 1978 Lancia Sibilo
Back in the ‘70s, concept car interiors were filled with buttons that could run a rocket. Their interiors were also quite accurately, crammed too. But Bertone’s Lancia Stratos concept was a bit different. It looked worse.
The 1978 Lancia Sibilo concept was based on the production Lancia Stratos. Thus, on the exterior, it bore striking resemblances to the production vehicle. Bertone did a fantastic job on the outside. However, he ran out of ideas and room in the interior. It packed brown plastic, purple leather, and a light brown carpet. Even toy cars looked sexier at the time.