Korean Car Designers Take Ferrari Design Award

Korean Car Designers Beat Europeans to Take Ferrari Design Award

A team of budding car designers from South Korea’s Hongik University has beaten students from two of the world’s leading car design universities in Europe to win the 2011 Ferrari World Design Contest.

And, in a further sign of where the world’s future top car designers are coming from, the second placed student from the Turin campus of the Institute of European Design (IED) is from Azerbaijan and one of the two students who took third prize for the UK’s Royal College of Art is from China.

The winning design, Eternita, was designed Kim Cheong Ju, Ahn Dre, and Lee Sahngseok, all from South Korea and Studying at Seoul’s Hongik University. Azerbaijani Samir Sadikhov, who is studying at the IED in Turin, took second place with his design ‘Xezri’, while Henry Cloke from the UK and Qi Haitao from China joined forces at the UK’s Royal College of Art to design ‘Cavallo Bianco’

The three finalists received their prizes from Ferrari chairman Luca di Montezemolo, CEO Amedeo Felisa, Paolo Pininfarina, chairman of the Pininfarina Group which has partnered Ferrari in the styling of its cars for more than six decades, and Flavio Manzoni, director of the Ferrari Style Centre, which organised the contest.

Explaining why Ferrari was supporting a world white competition for new car designers studying at 50 universities around the world, Ferrari Chairman Luca di Montezemolo said:

“Nurturing the creativity of young people must be a fundamental strategy in every walk of life. The Ferrari World Design Contest represents a window that we want to keep open on the world and the creative energy of the next generation. I saw at first hand the many genuinely innovative ideas that these talented youngsters sent us and could feel the enormous passion and commitment that had gone into them. I am certain that some of these suggestions will come to light in the Ferraris of the future.”

The Seoul students provided the finest interpretation of Ferrari’s design brief for a thoroughbred hyper car brimming with new generation technologies and materials, a car that is extreme (“hyper”) not only in its architecture but also in every other aspect. Having completed an initial 2D design, the entrants then generated 3D models in 3D Autodesk® Alias as well as making a physical 1:4 scale model with a particular emphasis on detailing both the exterior and interior of the car in addition to more functional concerns.

All of the design concepts focused on reducing fuel consumption through alternative propulsion systems, particularly hybrid engines. Another common thread was the boosting of driving pleasure through weight reduction. More geometric forms alternated with sinuous, almost organic lines in the various design projects.

There were also two special prizes with the “Autodesk Design Award”, for the best use of Alias software in the design process, which was presented by the technical partner to the contest to Hongik school. The second prize, the “Most Unexpected Technological Solution” award, went to the team from Jiangnan University (China) for audacious technical solutions contained in The Drake concept. The prizes were presented by Brenda Discher, Autodesk’s Vice President Industry Market, and Ferrari CEO Amedeo Felisa.

ENDS