Michelin Design Challenge Concept Car Cleans Polluted Air - VIERIA

Imagine a car that only transforms its shape to navigate different kinds of traffic but also filters and purifies polluted city air. That’s the concept that two students at Kyung-won University in South Korea, Gunwoong Kim&Suji Kim, have come up with. They call it the VIERIA. The VIERIA’s wheels are mounted on scissor-shaped legs that can be moved to various configurations that work best in the city or on the highway, and its air intake draws polluted city air into the vehicle, where it is purified before being pushed out the tailpipe.

The VIERIA, which was recently unveiled at the Michelin Challenge Design Competition , has already won several awards, including the Incheon International Design Award in 2009 and the Seoul Cycle Design Competition in 2010, and this despite the fact that the car’s rather roughly translated press materials promise “drining cofortant”(Driving comfort).What do you think of this design? Pie in the sky or car of the future?

Via Michelin Challenge Design

By Laura K. Cowan