Lotus Concept Ice-mobile

It looks like a leftover prop from the next Bond movie – or perhaps The Thunderbirds – but if you’re planning on mounting an expedition to the Antarctic, this could be the perfect vehicle.

The Lotus was designed expressly for the Moon-Regan Trans Antarctic Expedition, which is planning to cross the 5000km-wide icy continent to raise awareness of how its fate "affects the whole world’s environment’’.

Being that you’re in a pristine ecological system – give or take anything similar to the century-old toxic levels of heavy metal pollutants from Europe’s Industrial Age of burning coal, that were found in Greenland's ice last week – the Lotus is powered by burning biofuel.

They don’t say which particular kind of biofuel it uses. But given the worthy environmental wholesomeness of the exercise, we can probably rest assured that the expedition team won’t be suctioning up a monopoly on some sort of staple food stock that reduces the African continent to starvation.

The marvellously green-cred engine powers the Lotus across the ice via rear-mounted propeller, which is a handy feature because when you’re in sub-zero temperatures you obviously need something to increase the wind chill factor just that little bit more.

Because it will be crossing the coldest continent on Earth, the vehicle has apparently been designed to have a minimum number of moving parts that could freeze solid.

And it is light enough for the scientists to be able to pull it across the landscape like a makeshift husky team if they feel the need for a bit of light exercise, perhaps keeping the beat with a bit of a capella barking, to spur them on to greater physical effort.

It may not have much in the way of creature comforts… no ipod-compatible stereo system, for example. Nor any heated seats, although you can imagine at least one user might have requested them. But the bizarre creation is fitted out with an ice-penetrating radar that is supposed to detect any dangers ahead -- gaping crevasses, thin ice, packs of marauding penguins and so on.

Naturally, the aim is to keep the contraption sitting above the ice, rather than falling through it and into the freezing briny depths. An incident that could make you startlingly aware that the acronym for the Concept Ice Vehicle – CIV -- is actually pronounced `sieve’.