“The first custom job was on my bicycle, ” Frank M Rinderknecht recalls. “I was 13 and had just seen Easy Rider and decided I had to have those big handlebars. Needless to say people shook their heads and asked what the purpose was–it was cool downhill but very strenuous uphill. And the next year I was tuning up my new moped. I think I’ve always been passionate about technical things, and about building them on gut feeling.”
And in a big way. If James Bond’s Q was a specialist in all things mobility, he’d look to Rinderknecht for inspiration. Through his company Rinspeed–founded as what would become Europe’s leading VW and Porsche tuning specialist–the inventor has, for the last 30 years, created one outrageous concept car after another.
There’s the Bedouin, the world’s first natural gas-powered car, or the Advantige Rone, the first supercar powered by kitchen waste biofuel. But there’s also the Presto, which extends or contracts according to need. Then there’s the Splash, a car-esque car-cum-submersible. This is Hot Wheels made real.
