Helios was clearly inspired by the Jurassic era, when dinosaurs ruled the Earth. Helios is a concept design for an off-road electric solar-powered vehicle. When you take a break from your off-roading and stop the vehicle, the car will spread its “wings” which are made of photovolatic panels, in order to capture the sun’s rays and charge up the battery.

You’ve seen the concept in nature, where some animals have stretchable skin that absorb heat and light. A lizard might stop on a rock to take a breather and as he does, he opens up his extra skin and recharges. Same thing here. The Helios Concept won the Best Use of Technology at the Interior Motives Design Awards 2008. Pretty awesome.

This is one sweet looking single seat vehicle designed by Carlos Arturo Torres Tovar, who obviously channels the future like some crazy modern techno-shaman. I don’t know whether to drive it or just drool over it for an hour.

The idea is that the car works mainly through articulation meaning that this vehicle remains low at high speeds and it will also display helpful information during long trips through voice command by the driver. RD is convenient on busy roads as well as on long distance drives. Looks comfy too. It’s definitely a cool one to drive, but one problem. No room for a girl beside you. Check out a video below.

Named Blade Runner, this concept has nothing to do with chasing replicants. It’s a bus/train concept from British firm Silvertip Design. It will drive on roads just like other normal wheeled vehicles, but it also sports a set of retractable train-wheels that it can deploy to ride the rail lines. It looks like something that should be dueling with KITT on the open road. It’s supposed to carry 105 standing and sitting people and could well be a nice solution to long commutes. The fact that it straddles both the rails and the streets makes it very promising.

The Di-Cycle, by GBO Design is an amphibious bike designed for the city of Helmond in the Netherlands, because the city has just as many watery channels as it does actual roads. Therefore, the residents all want to make like amphibians, skimming across water.

The idea is that riders would be able to skim over the water just as if they were going across the land. Somehow I just don’t see that happening. It’s more likely to flip you over and fill your lungs with water as it keeps going, eventually depositing your corpse on the road your soul never made it to. It remains a concept for the moment thankfully.

One look and you can tell that this vehicle is all sound. It would probably drive down your street one early morning and break every window so that when you woke up, window replacement companies would be on the move and busy all week. That’s not what it was designed for however. It’s the creation of Dutch artist Olaf Mooij, who prefers his sound loud and on the outside of his car rather then inside.

The DJ Mobile is designed to be used as a mobile PA system. It houses two turn-tables and as you can see, a rear full of speakers. Find a party, park this monster, then operate it from a DJ platform while you stand through the sunroof. All I can say is, anything driving behind the DJ mobile best not tailgate as it could surely make you deaf.

Those who are always looking for the latest innovations in tailgating will want to take a serious look at the Manvan. Designed by Aimee LoDuca, this oversized behemoth of a van targets football fans who need more nachos, more beer and just plain more of everything.

It’s inspired by the Nissan NV200, and can expand in the rear just like you after a huge meal. It will house almost everything that you need for indoor and outdoor use. We first told you about the Nissan NV200 almost a full year ago, but it’s still at a conceptual stage, despite being completely awesome and extremely useful. One day soon we hope to see it realized. Man’s first parties were in caves, man’s next parties will be in vans.

This concept ice vehicle from Lotus would be perfect for some Bond villain from one of the old movies. But it wasn’t developed by a madman wanting to take over the world, it was developed for Antarctica on the Moon Regan TransAntarctic Expedition. It can run on snow and ice, sitting on three skis like a snow mobile.

The vehicle gets it’s power from biofuel, but is propeller-driven and even sports an ice penetrating radar that is capable of detecting potentially dangerous crevasses. It was tested in Sweden so that it can withstand the harsh polar elements. I don’t care what they built it for, it would be hard not to beat up on this thing joyriding across the arctic.

Check out this submarine that looks like a dolphin. It’s called the Innespace Seabreacher, a two-seater submersible that looks and moves like a dolphin. Interestingly, the Seabreacher uses the same canopy as an F-22 fighter jet to insure that the inside stays nice and dry with a watertight seal. The vehicle seems a lot like a jet fighter for the water when you see it in motion.

Since it’s made to mimic a dolphins movement, it uses the downward lift of the wings to jump out of the water, and even do barrel rolls. I suppose it’s as close as humans can get to actually being a dolphin. You have to wonder what the dolphins think about all this. Check out a video below.

The REVOLUTE would certainly get you some attention riding around in your neighborhood. It even has a remote that can reconfigure the wheelbase depending on how you want to ride it.

If you have something to say to your fellow humans, personalized messages can be flashed from the display along the entire cockpit!. Harsha Vardhan made the vehicle out of high tech materials like lexan, carbon fiber, etc. The seats inside swivel. Looks like a comfy little vehicle to get crushed in.

This concept by Dutch designers looks like a Star Trek shuttlecraft on wheels. The basic idea is that the cabin on top of the platform can move around during a crash, which would hopefully keep the passengers inside safely out of any areas that would crumple and get hit during the impact.

The passengers could theoretically be exposed to much less force and the car wouldn’t get damaged quite as badly. That cuts down on injuries and death of course. It’s an awesome idea if it works the way they think it does. Probably the weakest area would be where the cabin and the platform meet. If they can make that super durable, it’s a concept that should work.