Future imperfect

IN 2058, THE FIRST COMMERCIAL NUCLEAR FUSION REACTORS began operation, the resulting abundance of cheap, clean energy enabling physicists to make time travel a miraculous but hazardous reality.

One of the developers and first users of the time-travel system, Shinichi Eichhörnchen, had a passion for old internal combustion engined cars, Lotuses in particular. He therefore seized the opportunity to travel back to 1970 and, posing as the motoring correspondent of the Diss Express, secured an interview with Colin Chapman. In awe at their meeting, nervously, he opened with the question: ‘What specification would you want to see a Lotus having in the future, for example, in 2024?’

The faintest of smiles beneath a distant gaze settled on Chapman’s face, that genius brain ‘imagineering’ all the capabilities that the next 54 years of new technologies could bestow upon his cars. His answer: ‘Two seats, a 600bhp 2-litre V12, 500kg weight, and braking and cornering at 2 g.’

‘Yes! It will have 600bhp!’ exclaimed Shinichi excitedly. ‘I’m from the future and I have seen it! It has a 600bhp, er, electric motor. And not two seats but five. It’s a bit like a Range Rover, actually, but it doesn’t go offroad. And it weighs 2500kg. And it will be made in China.’

At first, amused at the wild fantasies of this fool, Colin let out a chortle. But then his demeanour hardened and he reached for his telephone.

Shinichi Eichhörnchen died in 1992, in the same psychiatric hospital he had been committed to after being sectioned for his own safety in Hethel on that day in 1970. He never once relented from his claims…

James Gardiner, Derby