Well it has happened. A crowd sourced designed car in the flesh that actually looks pretty good. This is an early image of the Local Motors Rally Fighter before getting loaded for a trip to SEMA in Vegas . The official unveiling is this week. Head over to the Local Motors build section and see the development of this baja ready vehicle.
Sadly we won’t be at SEMA this year to check out all the details. So it will be interesting to hear the comments from the public seeing this vehicle for the first time. How do you think it will be received? Should the OEM’s be worried? More news to come when the press release is announced.
Congratulations to Sangho Kim and the Local Motors team for their first newborn!
I’ve already been vocal about my dislike of Local Motors crowdsourcing of design, but beyond that, I think the car is good looking, if not stunning or groundbreaking. Although they’ve done what they said they would do, I think it will be much harder to make this model work for any kind of practical car, even at low volume. I see them as being an interesting study in creating a cottage car maker with lots of hype. But in reality, I don’t think the major manufacturers have anything to fear.
Now, if they started asking designers to really think creatively, rather than voting on the prettiest sketches (say, in the Gordon Murray style), I think there’d be the possibility of coming up with something more revolutionary.