Five words tell you everything about the FXC Concept, Honda's bid to produce the car of the future based on fuel cell technology.

"This is not a fairytale," the car's creator, Yozo Kami, says. It looked like a dream machine when it was rolled into the spotlight at the Tokyo motor show last year but since then Honda has been flat-out transforming that dream into a reality.

It is now planning to have a fleet of FCX Concept cars on the road in the US and Japan in 2008. Honda is one of several car makers who can see that using hydrogen as a fuel, and building cars which generate their own power to run electric motors, is emerging as the best long-term solution.

Unlike the BMW Hydrogen7 we revealed in CARSguide last week, Honda is using fuel cell technology. The BMW has a monofuel combustion engine that runs on hydrogen and petrol. But while there is still no hydrogen supply network and generating the gas is costly without a carbon-neutral program, Honda is working on systems that use solar power or tap into a household gas connection for refuelling.

It has run its original FCX fuel cell program for more than five years and put 35 cars on the road in the US, but has much bigger plans for the FCX Concept, which was previewed in California last week.

It will build and lease a fleet of cars from 2008 and there is every chance that 100 cars will be involved. No one is talking about the cost or terms of the lease, but Honda will copy GM's work with its EV-1 electric car and eventually plans to dissect or crash all the cars at the end of the real-world laboratory trial. Honda has plenty of experience with electric and fuel-cell cars, after starting plug-in work in the 1980s, but the FCX Concept is a big leap forward.

It is similar in size to today's Accord Euro and is a four-passenger sedan with a top speed of 160km/h and a range of 330 kilometres. It has hydrogen fuel tanks in the tail, the car's fuel-cell stack - which generates power when it combines hydrogen with oxygen from the air -- is set down the central spine, and there is a single-speed gearbox and cooling system in the nose.

It all looks very normal, but also quite futuristic with a sleek shape and a giant windscreen over a short nose.

Honda had a pair of FCX Concept cars in California and both had leather trim, airconditioning, a sound system and anti-skid brakes. The production cars will grow airbags and more and Honda says they will pass all current and future certification trials, including crash tests. It is a big project for Honda. "This fuel-cell technology has a very high potential to become the alternative technology to replace the traditional piston engine," says Kami, Honda executive chief engineer.

Kami's team has developed a car very similar to today's family sedan, apart from a single-speed front-wheel drive transmission - only one gear is needed because an electric motor has huge torque and also spins to 12,000 revs - and a single dial in the dash that gives speed, hydrogen use and range.

There are still plenty of problems to overcome, from hydrogen supplies to the cost of the exotic materials used in the fuel cell stack.

Kami is not forecasting a wholesale switch to fuel-cell transportation, but believes it will run in parallel with plug-in electric cars for cities and some petrol-powered machines for long-distance work and performance driving.

Honda provided the proof on the FCX Concept when it rolled a pair of cars onto the track at Laguna Seca in northern California last week. We have driven a number of concept cars over more than a decade and most drive like mobile science experiments. In other words, they are usually slow and flimsy and often very poorly finished.

Some are so fragile they are limited to just 40km/h, but Honda was keen to seen the FCX Concepts running at 140km/h and more over a short test track, which also included the parts of the Laguna road race course and some of its access roads.

The cars looked real, felt real and drove surprisingly like a regular production car.

The boot is small, but that is down to the hydrogen fuel tanks, which also limit a driver's rear vision. The view over the short nose is very 21st-century and the dash is also futuristic, with the big central dial and a single lever to choose between park, forward and reverse. When you hit the start button there is some whirring and gurgling as the fuel cell goes to work, but otherwise the car

is silent. Move away and there is only a distant hiss from the tyres.

It is much more reminiscent of a jet aircraft than a car, right down to the smooth and seamless surge of power. But floor the accelerator and the FCX Concept sounds like a hyper Hoover. It whines and screams as it pushes - with a speedo marked in miles per hour - to 40mph, 60, 80 and beyond.

Honda does not give a 0-100km/h sprint time but it should be in the respectable 10-second range and the top speed claim of 160km/h is realistic. Even better, the FCX Concept rides and handles like a real car.

It's capable of squealing the tyres in a tight turn. The powertrain is nice, but the car is rough and ready and the suspension would embarrass the worst Korean carmaker.

Nevertheless, as the sun set over Laguna Seca we could see the dawn of a new day. The fuel-cell car is coming and the future is looking surprisingly bright. The FCX Concept is a car we'd be happy to drive today. And Honda promises it will be even better in 2008.