Dominic Wilcox's "car of the future" is driverless and made of stained glass

London Design Festival 2014: London designer Dominic Wilcox has unveiled a life-size concept car design for a future where driverless technologies make the roads safe enough to drive vehicles made of glass (+ slideshow).

Stained-glass driverless car by Dominic Wilcox

Wilcox created the car, called Stained-glass Driverless Sleeper Car of the Future, as a commission for a Dezeen and MINI Frontiers exhibition on the future of mobility, which opened today as part of the London Design Festival.

The designer imagined a future where all cars were controlled by computers that would eliminate collisions and accidents, meaning everyday vehicles would no longer need to be designed for safety.

Stained-glass driverless car by Dominic Wilcox

"In the future it will be safer to drive in a driverless car than it will in a manual car," said Wilcox. "Therefore we don't need the protection systems that are built into contemporary cars. We can just have a shell of any design."

Stained-glass driverless car by Dominic Wilcox

Made from coloured panels of glass, the pod-like shape of the vehicle was created using a wooden frame made from arches formed using a computer numerically controlled cutting machine that were attached to a flat base.

Stained-glass driverless car by Dominic Wilcox

The glass was attached using a method known as the copper foil technique, which involves wrapping the edge of each piece in copper tape and soldering them together where they touch each other.

Stained-glass driverless car by Dominic Wilcox

Opening from the front, the entire stained glass dome pivots on a hinge at the rear. Inside, there are none of the usual controls of a car – instead Wilcox imagines it would be operated remotely by a computer, in a similar fashion to Google's driverless car.

Stained-glass driverless car by Dominic Wilcox

Removing the controls frees the space inside for a number of functions. For this design Wilcox added a bed to create a "sleeper car".

Stained-glass driverless car by Dominic Wilcox

He has also launched a concept website called taxirobot.co.uk, where users can order cars with a number of different functions including a bedroom, mobile office, gym, a dining car and a sun bed car that could be programmed to avoid routes with more cloud cover.

Stained-glass driverless car by Dominic Wilcox

The website suggests a number of different possible designs for the exterior of the vehicle as well as offering a flexible time and date selection service for pick up.

Stained-glass driverless car by Dominic Wilcox

The car will be on display at designjunction, The Sorting Office, 21-31 New Oxford Street, London WC1A 1BA, until 21 September.

Stained-glass driverless car by Dominic Wilcox

Photography is by Sylvain Deleu.

Find out more about the Dezeen and MINI Frontiers: future of mobility exhibition »

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