Would suit:
The Jetsons.
Price:
£8999 (not on sale yet but due in the UK in June 2007).
Performance:
130km/h, 0-80km/h 11.2sec.
Combined fuel consumption:
Five litres/100km.
I was motorising my way over to the President Widdecombe Memorial Library in sector D24h in my new Mitsubishi iCar when a call came through on my cortex implant.
I answered it in the usual fashion: wiggling my ears back and forth. It was a public-service announcement from our new Great Leader warning of another methane tornado on the way from the vast cattle-grazing pastures of Brazil.
I think-channelled YouTube (the world's most authoritative news source. It was true, Peaches explained, the cloud was even now crossing sub-tropical Normandy, in the south of the British Republic. I had to hurry. If the Environment Minister was reading the weather report, it must be serious!
Ever since the Hilton-Lohan wars of 2010 we have been prey to these sudden winds, a result of the collective flatulence of the Burger King beef herds of South America.
"How ironic," I chuckled to myself, "that for all those years we worried about global warming from fossil fuels. If only we had known the truth about Hilton's backers..."
Thank heavens for the wisdom of our Great Leader and her noble consort Peter Andre. Even though many things are in a parlous state since her audacious coup following the Silicone Revolt five years ago - not least those poor Beckhams, will they ever be released? - at least our early-warning cow trumpometers were now functioning properly.
Anxious that I wouldn't make it to the safety of the nearest Richardnjudy Shelter I changed down a gear and floored the throttle. My head jerked awkwardly and I cursed the Mitsubishi's automatic transmission. My speed increased only marginally.
It reminded me of the ancient Smart cars that had been all the rage at the turn of the century - that golden age of motoring, when Lord Ken Livingstone did all he could to protect car owners from the onslaught of the environmentalists by helping them to fund the last Olympics.
How outdated these kind of systems seem now compared to the new Thought-Change� transmissions, I thought, swerving to avoid the Peugeot in front of me as it suddenly changed down to first and its engine exploded - my thoughts on gearboxes having, unfortunately, interfered with its system (one of the risks of changing gear using brain waves).
Apart from its transmission, the iCar was extremely impressive. It is tiny, yet has loads of space for four iAdults and their iChemical Weapons suits, thanks to the location of its 600cc turbocharged engine under the boot floor.
Admittedly, 600cc is far more than you will ever need on modern roads - who among us is likely to see the top speed of 130km/h, unless we are fortunate enough to get a chance to drive on one of the late Minister for Transport's eponymous Clarksontracks? - but its 55mpg economy is only bettered in this class by the Range Britney.
And at least there is no risk from the laser-guided, flame-throwing speed cameras toted by traffic wardens these days.
The interior quality is, of course, nowhere as good as one of those new Chinese Rovers; it reminds me of the plastic boxes eggs used to be packed in (of course, that was before bird 'flu meant we all had to eat our eggs in Heston Blumenthal's patented pill form). Then again, with a price of only £112,000 - a little more for the electric one - you can't argue. And above all else, it just looks so, well, futuristic, doesn't it?
It's a classic: Honda FCX
It seems strange to think that, for a few years after the turn of the 21st century, we believed hydrogen - and not the fermented pomegranate juice we now take for granted - would be the fuel of the future.
Back then, Honda led the race to bring hydrogen-powered fuel-cell cars to the masses with this, the slippery FCX saloon. Built at a cost of £2.5-million (Earth pounds), each FCX used a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell that produced electricity to power the car - equivalent to 100kW, giving a top speed of 160km/h and 0-100km/h in less than 10 seconds.
More importantly, the 1.7-tonne FCX could return the equivalent of about three litres/100km with, of course, zero emissions.
What was unique about the FCX was that it was a specially designed, four-seater hydrogen sedan, as opposed to an adapted existing model.
When it was launched in 2009 there were initial problems with the amount of water the cars created - nine litres for every kilo of hydrogen produced - which iced the roads during cold snaps and led to numerous law suits against Honda. - The Independent, London