How would you like to buy a car that has zero emissions, sprints from 0-60 mph in under five seconds, can do 300 mpg and is almost bulletproof in terms of its crash performance?

Thought so. And the bizarre truth is that you could buy a car with this wealth of amazing attributes right now, except that high-tech means high prices.

Almost every motor show is packed with concept cars that display incredible advances in design, performance, economy and packaging, but what may come as a surprise is the fact that quite often these advances are tangible. The only barrier to them being in a showroom-ready machine is the price.

And it’s not just motoring that works like this. Look at the home PC market: five years ago the idea of having twin processors was almost laughable, given the costs involved, but now they are both common and affordable. Right now there are yet more chips which can far exceed the performance of even the best commercially-available machine, except that they cost a fortune to develop and so won’t reach the market for several years.

For chips, read engines, and you can understand why progress in the automotive industry can seem somewhat incremental.

If you want maximum efficiency, you need minimal weight, and that means using exotic materials. Using clever high-tensile steel wherever possible shaves a few kilograms off, but to really crash-diet you need carbon fibre. Trouble is it costs around 10 times as much as steel, and that could add as much as 30 per cent to the list price of your car. There’s also one other small issue – you can’t hammer out a dent in a carbon fibre panel or chassis, you need a new bit instead…

Then there’s the matter of propulsion. You have options here, given the huge budget. Go for the absolute latest battery and electric motor technology and you can have blistering acceleration (thanks to maximum torque at zero rpm). Add in a hydrogen fuel cell and you have the huge range to go with it. Except that there’s a price to pay here, too.

There’s isn’t much of a hydrogen infrastructure at the moment, so it would take deep pockets to get some delivered to your house. The cutting-edge of lithium-ion batteries don’t come cheap either.

The other point that needs to be made is that however keen manufacturers are to bring in these advanced machines – and there are several good reasons why they are – time is a huge factor.

Remember that a conventional car takes around five years to get from a blank sheet of paper to the showroom floor, thanks to legislature, tooling, production, testing and so on. Imagine how much longer a car with hydrogen and electric power, wireless controls and constructed entirely from unobtanium would take to make.

As the old saying goes, the best things come to those who wait.