Los Angeles area automobile design studios have been asked to come up with their interpretation of the Ultimate LA Machine.
The LA Auto Show provided a sneak peek into the competition by releasing one of the thirteen entries: the Hyundai NTT, Entity, submitted by the Hyundai Kia America Design Center.
The Hyundai design team describes the banana-colored NTT as part surfboard, skateboard, and boom box. It has tandem four-row seating to slice through traffic and a built-in surfboard forming the roofline. The studio suggests, "The Hyundai NTT is not only a vehicle, it's a way of life."
The design challenge is part of the auto show's theme -- Design Los Angeles -- as a way to showcase Los Angeles area design studios' imagination in a fun and creative manner. Over the past several months, studios have internally debated and some have even held competitions to determine which two-dimensional conceptual rendering will represent their individual studio.
According to David O'Connell of Mitsubishi, it's been hard to keep all his designers from becoming involved.
"Projects like this are really fun to work on, even though they are truly blue sky in nature," O'Connell explained. "Yet at the same time, they are firmly grounded in real world challenges that require real world solutions."
Judging the competition are three esteemed educators: Tom Matano, Director of the School of Industrial Design at Academy of Art University in San Francisco, Imre Molnar, Dean of the College at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, and Nathan Young, Executive Vice President of Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.
The Design Challenge participants are:
- BMW Group DesignworksUSA
- Ford California Advanced Product Creation
- Toyota Calty Design Research
- General Motors 5350 Industrial Concepts
- Honda Research and Development
- Hyundai Kia America Design Center
- Mazda Research and Development
- Mercedes-Benz Advanced Design of North America
- Mitsubishi Research and Design of North America
- DaimlerChrysler Pacifica Design Center
- Volkswagen/Audi Design Center California
Design Los Angeles, in addition to being the show's theme, doubles as a conference for automobile designers. A number of programs, speakers and breakout sessions have been developed in close collaboration with the design community to serve the professional interests of automobile designers.