Audi A1 projection mapping: Time For Tea?

Thought you needed scantily clad ladies to spice up a static display? Think again!

Conceptually at least, the average manufacturer's motor show display is a bit weird. Why? Because static car displays are, well, static. Unless you spend your rush hours (ha) in the Wandsworth one-way system, cars are meant to be moving things.

The challenge of bringing a kinetic element into the dusty confines of a show hall has traditionally been met in one of two ways: a dirty great video screen showing Hans Schweinblaben hurling the latest Nickertwang around the 'Ring, or a few garishly-painted dolly birds in Bacofoil tottering moodily around a stage to a headsplitting electrofusion loop.

There are other, more imaginative ways of putting across some sense of vitality and movement, and here's one of them. Most of us will have seen hologram projections on city buildings, usually of terrible people you wouldn't want to see in normal size, let alone at 200,000 per cent. The use of laser video mapping in the car industry isn't so well known, but when it's done nicely, it's rather effective.

This one was put together by Russian meeja outfit Radugadesign as a feature for an Audi Car Design Awards event held in Moscow in 2011. 2011? That's like the Stone Age, innit, which makes you wonder what could be done now.

If you liked that, here's another one, this time by BMW for a UAE show. Maybe Volkswagen should do one for the Phaeton, with a stream of £10 notes flying out of the exhaust pipe? (Special Phaeton offer running at the moment by the way: £7K off!).

See it here.