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If you saw this car on the street, you’d half expect a comically large number of clowns to come piling out of it. But it turns out despite its Looney Tunes-esque look, there’s a noble—if somewhat bizarre—concept behind this new car from Toyoda Gosei.

This is the “Flesby,” a new concept car that Toyoda Gosei will display at the 2015 Tokyo Motor Show next week, with the “concept” being essentially that the entire outer body of the car is one gigantic airbag. Let’s take a look.

Toyoda Gosei says the Flesby is designed with a large number of safety features that will protect both the driver of the miniature vehicle, as well as any pedestrians unfortunate enough to find themselves in the cartoonish car’s path.

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Apparently, the Flesby’s biggest gimmick is an onboard system that uses an array of sensors to anticipate an impending collision with a pedestrian and deploy its full-chassis airbag to cushion the impact, presumably sending the pedestrian harmlessly flying a few feet with a comical “BOIIIING!” sound. Additionally, although we’ve yet to see the Flesby in the, uh, flesh, we also must assume that pressing the vehicle’s horn will result in a hilarious “AWOOOGA!,” like you just drove out of the alternate version of Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

Joking aside, the Flesby also features a futuristic interior that can reportedly sense the driver’s posture and, somehow, mood, through an array of sensors located throughout the interior. The car will then use this information to adjust lighting and music, and even the scent of the interior to relax the driver. We do not know if it will offer you coffee or douse you with cold water if it senses you’re getting drowsy, but we feel Toyoda Gosei would be missing out on a huge opportunity without this feature.

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The Flesby is even equipped with a massive array of interior LEDs that can be set to recreate the scenery outside of the vehicle for a full panoramic view of your surroundings while you drive. Also, promotional images show the steering wheel as two Minority Report-esque joysticks, we assume because Toyoda Gosei figured nobody would take this goofy-looking thing seriously if there wasn’t at least one cool-looking feature on it.

Visitors to this year’s Tokyo Motor Show will be able to get a look at the Flesby up close as well as step into a simulated cockpit to get a feel for all the cool digital features of the car’s interior. We really hope Toyoda Gosei staff will also invite visitors to fling themselves at the car to test out the exterior airbag function, but we suppose we’ll have to wait till next week to find out.

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Source: ennori.jp
Images: Toyoda Gosei