The paint on the Infiniti Essence concept car looks pretty close to molten metal, like a Super Silver Nissan GT-R with 100 more coats of paint. It makes the car vulnerable to almost everything, and anyone who touches the car has to wear special white gloves. The paint, and various other non-production-spec adhesives, also makes the Essence very heat-sensitive, so it will ride to Pebble Beach in a climate-controlled truck.

First, though, it has to come off its pallet. The logistics staff deploys the pallet's built-in ramps (one for each wheel), which enable the Essence's caretaker, Nissan's Andy Parkin, to ease it down the ramp. Controls within the car allow Parkin to raise the front suspension 1.6 inches and the rear 1 inch to the improve the Infiniti's none-too-favorable breakover angle.

Parkin removes his shoes before getting behind the wheel of the Essence, but the one-off concept car starts right up.

Infiniti billed the Essence as its first hybrid application at the car's Geneva debut. The spec sheet showed a twin-turbocharged and direct-injected 3.7-liter V6 rated at 434 horsepower paired with a rear-drive electric motor motivated by a 158-hp lithium-ion battery pack. But there was no mention of what sort of transmission the rear-wheel-drive Essence might use. And today's not the day for a look under the hood.