Often, they appeared just once, tucked away in the corner of a lavish stand at one of the big international motor shows; some were never shown in public, confined to technical conferences and seminars. Not flashy 'dream cars', rather, these are the real 'concept cars', produced less for show and eye-catching magazine covers, and more to demonstrate technological prowess of their makers. Ray Hutton delves into the archives to remember forty of these fascinating one-offs created through the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, a time of rapid development for everyday cars and growth in sales for the premium brands. Between them, they predicted almost all of the features of today's production cars. And, just as important, are the ambitious failures and the purposely provocative that led nowhere. Most of these cars are long forgotten. They are, in a sense, the cars that never were, and they represent milestones in that development as well as being fascinating in their own right. This book brings them briefly back to life.



Ray Hutton is a long-serving commentator on the motor industry and its products. He has explored all 40 cars featured in this book, and driven 16 of them. He was editor of Autocar into the 1980s, and subsequently a contributor to magazines, newspapers and websites worldwide, notably The Sunday Times and Car and Driver (USA). He is the award-winning author of nine books on cars, the motor industry and motor sport.