Mitsubishi MMR25 Concept Reinvents The Wheel

At first sight, Mitsubishi's MMR25 Rally Racer seems to have re-invented the wheel. The stunning concept, Mitsubishi's entry in this year's Los Angeles Auto Show Design Challenge, replaces traditional wheels and tires with circular arrays of canted, rubberized rollers resembling something between your mom's hair curlers and a sinister member of the arachnid family.

The theme for the design challenge is "Motorsports in 2025." Mitsubishi Chief Designer David O'Connell claims that it's "just the sort of assignment the designers at Mitsubishi Motors dream of," claiming their depiction of motorsport in the year 2025 looks both back upon Mitsubishi's success in automotive competition as well as forward to what such events might be like in the future.

The LA Auto Show Design Challenge urges Southern California-based studios to compete against each other for the claim of ultimate automotive design studio. Los Angeles is an appropriate backdrop for this competition, being the home of so many carmakers' North American design studios as well as home to the the famed Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA, which has produced some inspired automotive designs and designers. Mitsubishi's full rendering will be released at the L.A. Auto Show this November.--Colin Mathews