Opel's dynamically-styled Meriva concept presents the manufacturer's next level of monocab flexibility.

The most eye-catching innovation is the Flexdoors concept: while the front doors are conventionally designed with front hinges, the rear doors swing open toward the back of the car, which makes, for instance, securing children in the back seat much easier.

The rear-hinged rear doors provide access at the car's highest point - just behind the B-pillars - and the door openings are not restricted by the wheel arches like conventional door apertures. Both front and rear doors open to a 90-degree angle, compared with the doors on the current production Meriva which open to about 60 degrees.

As part of the Flexdoors concept's innovative monitoring system, the Meriva Concept also features an automatic electronic child lock, which supplements the conventional mechanical system. The rear-hinged rear doors also improve control over children exiting the car, as they cannot step out into traffic as easily as with conventional doors. The flexconsole system is a further innovation which provides flexible storage space between the seats. Its realisation was made possible thanks to an electric handbrake.

This creates room for two rails above the conventional compartments in the centre console, which extend back as far as the rear seats. Various containers can be easily fixed to these rails and pushed backwards and forwards, so that rear passengers can also make full use of the system. There is no limit to the type of containers which can be simply clicked into the space management system with spring-loaded pins. Anything is possible, from a cool box to a coffee machine, or from a mobile communication centre to a chic handbag.

The Meriva Concept's door system also offers benefits when using the extraordinarily flexible FlexSpace rear seating system, which has been carried over from the current production Meriva. The handles to move or fold down the rear seats are now even easier to reach. In the standard five-seat configuration, the Flexspace system offers three seats in the rear.

The layout with two single seats in the rearmost position offers particularly high levels of comfort: the Meriva then becomes an extraordinarily spacious four-seater, offering leg and shoulder room for all seats that rivals a mid-size class car. If more luggage space is required, both single outer seats can be individually pushed forward or folded away completely into the car floor quickly and easily. In this configuration, the centre seat is simply folded down. Even as a five-seater, the Meriva boasts a cargo capacity of 415 litres - considerably more than usual in the compact car class. However, the Meriva Concept can be quickly and easily transformed into a two-seat MPV with a 1,420-litre load capacity.

Another innovation helps with luggage compartment loading: the vertically adjustable load floor. Thanks to this innovation, heavy luggage need not be lifted up and out of the trunk. Instead, the load floor can be raised by 20 centimetres at the touch of a button.