If you want to see the future of car design, you might want to look to the past, to the concept cars designed decades ago.

Take L’Œuf électrique, a three-wheeled, egg-shaped electric model built for personal use by the French artist, industrial designer, and engineer Paul Arzens in 1946. It was conceived as a response to gas shortages during World War II, and it never went into production. But its fuel efficiency and compactness foreshadowed today’s Smart cars and hybrids.