Hot sketches?  Check.  Giant wheels?  Check.  Aggressive styling?  Check.  Production vehicle?  Check..?  Yes, CHECK.

Local Motors has released information on their first build, the “Rally Fighter” by recent winner Sangho Kim.  The concept was born of true open-source thinking via LM’s Design Process community section of their website: Designer creates concept, community critiques concept, designer refines concept, community critiques again, and so on.  To designers, the process is reminiscient of every college design course (and every succesful design studio) we had, with weekly critiques of our designs in efforts to make it better.  (We’ll have more on the Design process in a future article).  Kim’s concept was one of the first to utilize the Design Process, and did so effectively, evolving over the summer into the vehicle that you see in the images below.

The vehicle, although it will have to slightly morph to fit today’s safety and manufacturing standards, is a take on the stylish not-so-off-road genre that BMW, Audi, and even Hyundai are starting to take a look into seriously.  Dubbed a “larger lighter-weight” car that is fuel-efficient, the Rally Fighter had it’s roots as a BMW-inspired concept, picking up the look of the X6 and eventually evolving the proportion and form language to become more unique.  While not as outlandhish as many concepts we see come out of other design competitions (and other start-ups) the Rally Fighter has a clean, modern aesthetic that will aim to help define the Local Motors brand language.

If the final vehicle retains much of the “sketch on wheels” appeal of Kim’s concept, then the Rally Fighter will be a winner.  With the help of LM team members such as Ben Messmer (Lead Designer at Local Motors) and their engineering staff and community, the project looks promising, and will be a nice way for the design communityto showcase itself in the increasingly open-source world that we live in.  Congratulations to Sangho Kim, who’s having one heck of a summer!

Official press release (and a few more images) after the break.
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Recently completed by third-year students at Turin’s Istituto Europeo di Design was a BMW-sponsored project aimed at visualizing concepts for what a BMW would look like in 2015.  With the theoretical deadline just a short 7 years away, the students reached as far as possible, stretching their creaitivity.

The project was overseen by BMW Design Chief Chris Bangle himself, with help from Thomas Plath, Director of Model Techniques and Process Management, and Anders Warming, BMW Exterior Design Director.  The 35 students were divided into 18 teams to develop the vehicles, of which 12 were selected to be completed.  Of those 12, 8 were turned into 1:4 scale models and 4 were CAD.

The specifications of the project included maintaining BMW’s design heritage, with an emphasis on nature (wind, the sea, flowing movement) and emotion (music, socializing, etc).  While this Design language may seem very similar to the recent Mazda work being done, it led to several varied takes on the direction, from concepts that mimicked the “living” BMW Gina concept to vehicles straight out of “I, Robot”.  Students had to focus not only on the exterior, but the interior as well.

BMW ZX-6 Concept by Jai Ho Yoo and Lukas Vanek

Take a look at several of the concepts after the break.

[Thanks to CarBodyDesign.com for the images and information]

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Ford and CCS (College for Creative Studies) recently wrapped up the Big Oval’s sponsorship of a Junior class with the goal of a redesigned Model T for tomorrow’s buyers.  In total, 11 students participated in the assignment, and each had as unique a concept as the next.

Photo courtesy ANDRE J. JACKSON/DFP

The top selection was Dong Tran’s vision of an electric T running on a removable battery pack.  The concept allows for the pack to be utilized outside of the vehicle, and was powered by solar panels on the hood.  Also included in the concept was a novel utilization of the displaced energy generated by the suspension, allowing it to be saved for later use.  Sitting higher off of the ground, the re-envisioned T might be “the little Sport Ute that could,” offering a unique second row that folded away for optimal utilization of storage areas.

Read on for more images and concepts.

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It is always fun to see the ideas students bring to the world of design. Their unpolluted minds give a fresh perspective on what the youth of today wants in their driveway.

This years show consisted of almost 100 students (sophmores thru seniors) showing automotive, product, toy, and interior design. This translates into a lot to take in for one day.

The school year is over in a week or two and many already have internships lined up at companies like Honda, Toyota, Johnson Controls, Fisher Price and many product consultancies. This proves that it was a good show and the students have a lot of talent. Most of the pics in the gallery are from the junior class which shows they will be the ones to watch for next year when they are looking for full time positions.

Check out the gallery of the show and stay tuned as we visit the College of Creative Studies Show next week in Detroit.

The James Dyson Foundation Student’s Design Award is an annual competition taking place in the UK as part of the New Designers expo. Each year, several thousand students showcase their creativity at the expo, and Dyson selects a winning piece of student work. From Dyson’s own site, an explanation of the award:

The award presents an exciting opportunity for an emerging design engineer whose work best demonstrates the ability to think differently and create products that work better.

This year’s award winner was Reactiv by Michael Chen. The concept is based around the Wii idea of motion-sensing accelerometers built into sleeves of a jacket. As a bicyclist rides, LEDs in the sleeves react to speeding up and slowing down by changing colors, allowing vehicles or other riders behind the user to see if they are breaking or accelerating.

For more info and other creative entries, check out the Dyson Awards site.

Surfing around this weekend I stopped by carbodydesign and saw they had an article about the Pforzheim student show.   Knowing how most designers enjoy seeing the unpolluted imaginations of students here is the link cbd posted from conceptsalad.  Conceptsalad is a blog showing off student concepts and tutorials.

As for the show, not bad, but there have been better.  There are some interesting designs and hot sketches.  Once those case of the Monday’s kick in take some time and look at what you “used” to do.

I visited the Cleveland Institute of Art the other day and was reminded of the fun and stress of being in school. The fun of drawing what you want and making it look hot. Then the stress of hoping the OEM’s like it and you get a job.

There was not a lot of work up since the semester just started, but there was some left overs of the previous project and some early beginnings of this semester’s GM sponsored project. The new GM project is for a global car with sports in mind and a year unattainable.

Oh, the days of school where an engineer or costing person isn’t on your back. Here are a few pics to show what the kiddies are up to at the CIA. I’ll post more as the semester goes on.

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Thanks to one of our trusty readers, we’ve come across this great contest. Mazda is sponsoring a special design challenge to all would-be designers out there for some great prizes, including the chance to have the winning concept revealed at the LA Auto Show in clay form.

Click here for the link to the contest. Must be registered with Facebook to enter.

The basis for the challenge is designing what the Mazda3 of 2018 will look like via essay and/or sketch/photo. It actually seems simple… overly simple.

But you have to hurry… deadline is Oct 12th!

For entry details, follow the jump.

Thanks to fastguy11 for the info.

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Several months, 4000 entries, 87 countries, and 10 finalists later, the winner of Peugot’s Design Competition has been brought to life at the Frankfurt Auto Show. And in the honor of our continued LeMons coverage and the homage that Dshed’s team is doing to the original Marty Mobile, it seemed only right that we report on a vehicle named the “Flux“. Read more

Another year in the tank, another College for Creative Studies Student Show comes to pass. Evaluating an entire show spread across different disciplines on a growing campus can be exhausting… but it can also be quite rewarding.

Have a look in the Gallery.

While we will focus on more of the notable design efforts from the students, the show itself was very exciting and a joy to see the varied work from a plethora of talented artists.

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