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IF YOU’RE ever overtaken by a car with its steering wheel completely
detached from the dashboard, don’t panic. It might just be one of the prizewinning
inventions at this year’s Ideas Olympics undergoing a road test.

The competition, which the car company Toyota runs for employees, specialises
in producing wacky variations on the motor vehicle. This year’s innovations
were no disappointment. The 65 000 employees came up with more than 5000
entries. As usual, the most spectacular entries were the new vehicles, which
showed an extravagance of impracticality not usually associated with the
Japanese motor industry.

This year’s top award went to the Tetra, which runs on three ball-shaped
wheels, each driven by an independent motor. The advantage, the inventing
team said, was its ability to ‘move in all directions quickly’.

Exotic control systems provided a fertile field for innovation. One
team demonstrated a car controlled entirely by the voice of a young woman
perched on top wearing a headset and the traditional, if impractical, mini-skirt.
Another car moved forward only when being yelled at througha microphone:
the louder the shouts, the faster it went. Perhaps inverting the relationship
between noise and speed would do more for road safety.

Judging from the laughter, the crowd’s favourite was the detached steering
wheel, entered under the name ‘Rack and Pinion’. The steering wheel contained
all the controls needed to operate a vehicle looking suspiciously like a
dodgem car. To go in reverse, simply turn round and point it at the back
end. Some vehicles seemed to owe their origins to the ‘transforming robots’
in television cartoons. Cars looking like 1950s flying saucers rose up on
hind legs or disassembled themselves to change shape (it was all done with
hydraulic rams).

Another design borrowed from science fiction was the ‘New Walker’, which
propelled itself by walking forward on alternate sets of wheels. Yet another,
with wheels at the bottom of telescopic stalks, was ‘an attempt to control
the trend towards excessive speed,’ the inventor said. This seemed fair
enough, in that the contraption did not look safe at anything over walking
pace.

Ironically, Toyota borrowed the idea for the competition from its rival,
Honda. The company helps entrants with materials and gives them the run
of the company scrap-heap, but inventors receive neither financial support
nor time off from their regular tasks. Of course, it’s all more of a corporate
morale-booster than a search for marketable innovations. Toyota’s real R&D
budget this year is Pounds sterling 1.3 billion.

Despite the carnival atmosphere, there is something a little sad about
it all. In typically Japanese fashion, the competition allows eccentricity
to exist, but in a carefully staged way that negates much of its value.
The whole effect is rather like that of the teenage punk rockers who ‘rebel’
every weekend at Yoyogi Park in Tokyo – and go dutifully back to school
on Mondays. Nevertheless, the Ideas Olympics gives a charming insight into
engineers’ perceptions of the real problems of everyday life in Japan. Who
can deny that the umbrella, for example, is long overdue for improvement?
One inventor added a flexible handle, for dealing with crowds. Another showed
an expanding umbrella for growing families: a built-in electric motor, an
attached bag and an ingenious design which folded the wet side innermost
took care of the ever-lurking danger of damp trouser legs.

But the real star was the man who turned up in evening dress and top
hat to demonstrate his combined umbrella and electric scooter. When the
rain stops and you’re in a hurry, simply place the point of your brolley
down on the ground and unfold a small motorised platform. The prototype
unfolded properly, but refused to budge. What’s Japanese for ‘back to the
drawing board’?