Car Design Fetish

The team at Local Motors has announced their latest competition: a vehicle for Texas that fulfills the needs of hunters.

Whether they are aiming for big bucks or quail, the hunting community is a broad and yet highly-particular one with tremendous requirements.  The latest competition realizes that pickup trucks may not be the best solution for satiating the needs of hunters, focusing on the optimal hunting vehicle as a sort of “compartmentalized home base”.

We can see this as a terrific opportunity to get creative with vehicle design as more than just a styling exercise; imagine an all-in-one vehicle worthy of the “Sport Utility Vehicle” moniker.  This competition also has a heavy set of requirements in tow (no pun intended).  Objects like winches and tire pumps need to be accounted for, as do a set amount of passengers and 4-wheel drive.

The competition will draw 3 finalists, each with cash prizes.  Submissions begin on 27 January and end on 9th February, with voting ending on the 16th of February.

As usual, visit the Local Motors competition page HERE, and read up on the design brief below.

Competition Description

Design Brief: Design a vehicle for Texas that could easily meet the demands of hunters and could adapt depending on the requirements of the different types of game — white tail deer, quail, dove, and javalina to name a few. Essentially, design a base vehicle that could have various modules easily attached to it depending on the needs of the user.

Welcome to Texas, the “Lone Star” state, a territory that has been governed by six nations over the past 490 years, and has maintained a sense of independence– Texans legally fly the state flag at the same height as the American flag -side by side. But Texans have reason to be proud– their state is huge- 269,000 square miles, which is bigger than metropolitan France – 213,000 square miles. Yet unlike France which has a population of nearly 62 million inhabitants, Texas has a population of only about 25 million, a large number of whom live in or near the city centers of Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, Austin, San-Antonio and El-Paso. The large portion of the rest of Texas has less than 10 inhabitants per square mile, meaning most of Texas is either ranch, farm land, or wilderness.

The wide open spaces of Texas are a perfect habitat for wild game; animals and birds big and small are native to this land. There is a
connection between Texans, the wilderness and these animals.  Naturally, these descendants of frontiersman enjoy hunting for their
own food, providing for their families while enjoying the land they love.

Hunting in Texas is extremely popular. It is not uncommon when driving down the Texas highways to pass small hunting equipment stores or  dozens of pickup trucks with coolers and other equipment in their beds, signaling that the hunt is about to begin and, if successful, will end with coolers full of fresh game to eat and freeze for later.

The hunting lodge business is a growing industry; ranchers transform part or all of their ranch into hunting grounds because it is a better way to make a living than strictly raising cattle. Hunters come from all over the world to these lodges. Most lodges have guides that drive the hunters in pickup trucks to the hunting grounds.  Hunters either hunt from a ‘blind’ which is a small, camouflaged building big enough for 1 man or, in the case of bird hunting, wherever the birds like to feed on wild grain – usually in an open field. Some lodges hand over the keys to the truck to allow the hunters the flexibility of finding their own game.

But when it comes to the vehicles used for hunting, hunters have a significant disadvantage.  The limited choice of vehicles hunters have range from the typical pick up trucks and SUVs to heavily modified, at great expense,  versions  of these same vehicles.  Typical modifications include chopping the roof off so the hunters can shoot from inside the truck, ripping out unnecessary components, adding on rifle “scabbards” , adding additional bed space and welding on roof platforms —Although the modifications are impressive, these trucks are still limited by the fact that they were based on vehicles that were never designed for the hunter. While they can navigate rough terrain, the modifications make the vehicles less rigid and heavier, resulting in poor performance greater chances of getting stuck in the Texas mud.

The interiors are made of materials that are difficult to clean, rip easily, and plastics that become brittle and break easily in the scorching Texas sun and cold winter weather. Interior storage is non-existent;controls and handles are hard to use when wearing gloves. Secure, lockable storage is a must-have of most hunters as their rifles can easily cost upwards of a few thousand dollars.

The significant modifications also mean that these vehicles are not street legal, and thus are only usable during the hunting seasons. This disadvantage is compounded by the fact that some hunters like to hunt a wide variety of game, yet a vehicle that may be ideal for bird hunting is far from being ideal for white tail dear hunting. This means that hunters, and hunting lodge owners need to have a different vehicle for each kind of hunting, an unnecessary, and very significant cost!

What if the modern hunter could have a single, all-purpose vehicle?  A Vehicle that would be easy to transform from a deer hunting vehicle with a deer blind on the roof,to an open air bird hunting vehicle.  At the same time, it would be an, easy to take care of, light utility vehicle, that with the simple addition or subtraction of different modules, could match the changing needs of the hunter on the fly.

Well, “what if” is no more, as this is your task!

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