Nissan decided to use the hype of the 2016 Rio Olympics to their advantage and revealed something outlandish enough to grab some attention. The car they took to Rio to unveil is a new working prototype version of the Nissan BladeGlider, the weird looking thing that made a lot of noise two, three years ago.

This car, of course, wasn’t an original Nissan design but something they go involved with. And although it seemed like a cool idea at the time, the novelty quickly wore off it as the designers and engineers found this shape to be a nuisance to work with. Still, they milked the thing for all it was worth and even took it to Le Mans. Now Nissan BladeGlider is back in a new guise and wants us to believe it is the future of zero-emission motoring.

To that end the long and narrow Nissan BladeGlider features the propulsion system Nissan already uses, with some success, in the LEAF electric hatchback. It has two 130 kW motors with an immense torque of 707 Nm, which means the performance is decent, with 0-100km/h taking less than 5 second and a top speed of 190 km/h. The vehicle also boasts torque vectoring and a five module lithium-ion 220kW battery.

But in truth the BladeGlider is all about the design and the attractions of driving something wildly unusual. So it gets a jet-like canopy, rear-hinged dihedral doors, advanced display showing speed, state of battery charge, regeneration mode and torque map, and more screens instead of mirrors. There is also four point safety harnesses and a two-tone interior trim. The prototype BladeGlider will be offering dynamic rides to media and VIPs in Rio while Nissan works out what they want to do with it.