With all these flat nosed 'Vanguard' style shortboards, SUPs and whetever else paddling out at a beach near you; we've been thinking about what other strange surfboards we've seen over the years. Some of the designs have stuck, others have faded away (or simply been chucked) into mini-skips and garage corners worldwide. While the Vanguard might continue to leave pointy noses on the shaping room floor, they certainly aren't the weirdest thing sombody has tucked under their arm and run down the sand dunes with.

Here's five interesting ideas for surfboards, some of which are still around, others are not.

The inflato-board.

Starting with a concept that stuck, kind of, is an inflatable surfboard. A company called Uli brought a plastic finned inflatable to market several years ago, which could be rolled up and put into a backpack. While there aren't many inflatable surfboards around these days, there ARE a lot of inflatable stand up paddle boards, which use the exact same concept to great effect.

The car makers dream.

Sometimes Car makers should just stick to their day jobs, as evidenced by this piece of art made by Peugeot a couple of years ago. The Peugeot GTi concept surfboard is certainly unique, that's for sure. We're still wondering whether it surfs any good, and we'll probably never know…

The you-know-what looking nose rider.

Love noseriding, but hate your tail lifting? Let us introduce the Holmesy Sidewinder. Back in the 60's this wonder of modern shaping allowed 200 lucky surfers the chance to nose ride in complete control. The slots on the tail of the board stuck it to the water, and prevented the tail from lifting while hanging ten.

You need how many people to surf it?

While this is technically a stand up paddle board (or should it be a boat), this massive creation takes about three days to inflate, six people to surf and there's zero chance of controlling it once you drop in. We think it's safe to say the concept will remain somewhat of a niche.

Is that a table?

Of all the people to surf such a thing, it's gotta be Kelly Slater. While this wasn't exactly designed as a 'new and radical surfboard', it's definitely strange. What's stranger, is that it works really well in the knee to waist high wave he's paddled into… Check out the movie below to see how it surfs.