Lexus One-off Electric auto Prototype Must Be Seen To Be Believed

The designer of the Origami auto laser-cut 1,700 pieces based on a regular car’s digital model.

The origami IS features electric power and is able to roll along thanks to an electric motor and a cleverly hidden set of conventional tires.

The cardboard cut-out vehicle has a replica interior, functioning doors, headlights and rolling wheels.

Lexus’ new origami-inspired auto puts all those homemade cardboard vehicles from your childhood to shame. The intricate design was created to celebrate the skills of Lexus’s “takumi” craftsmen and women who work on the productions lines in Japan.

The “origami car” was built in London by a five-strong team of professional designers and modelers from specialist companies LaserCut Works and Scales & Models.

“Styling on cars is all about surfacing and angles, and how things change as you move around them; how does a car’s shape evolve from the front to the side to the back”.

“The seats took a few attempts to get just right and the wheels required a lot of refinings”, explained Ruben Marcos, of Scales & Models. Each slice took 3 hours to cure and the total build time was about three months.

In the early 1970s, architect Frank Gehry earned his first design awards for clever furniture made from corrugated cardboard, triggering an explosion of creative experimentation with this then-century-old material that had been mostly used for protective packaging.

It was driven through the National Exhibition Centre by television presenter Kevin McCloud at the start of Grand Designs Live.