Ferrari brings budding designers together for international contest

While F1 teams begin recruiting younger and younger drivers to their development programs, Ferrari is one of the few that brings young talent into other aspects of its operation, as well. The Italian marque has launched numerous initiatives with educational institutions, and has now targeted aspiring automotive designers with an international competition.

The contest brings design students from around the world together to compete for a chance to intern at Maranello, along with cash prizes. Some 50 different design schools entered the competition, of which seven have been selected as finalists: Detroit's College for Creative Studies, Turin's IED and IAAD, Barcelona's European Design Institute, London's Royal College of Arts, India's DSK Supinfocom and Seoul's Hog-ik College. Only six were originally to be picked, but the jury opted to include one more.

The teams are now moving into the second phase, creating models of their designs for a future Ferrari supercar. The results, judged by a panel of jurists headed by Ferrari chairman Luca di Montezemolo, will be announced in July. Follow the jump for the full press release.
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FERRARI WORLD DESIGN CONTEST
Seven prestigious international design schools enter the Contest's second stage


Maranello, 13th June 2011 – The first part of the Ferrari World Design Contest selection process has been concluded. The Contest has been launched by the manufacturer from Maranello in collaboration with Autodesk, the Ferrari's technical partner and proud supporter of the project, for 50 prestigious international design schools. The seven finalist schools, with students from all over the world, will be involved in planning the Ferrari of the future. The finalists are: IED and IAAD from Turin (Italy), the London Royal College of Arts (UK), the European Design Institute Barcelona (Spain), Seoul's Hong-ik College (Korea), the DSK Supinfocom from Pune (India) and the College For Creative Studies in Detroit (USA).

In this second part of the competition, which follows the part of the style research, the finalists will be involved in the creation of the three models every school can present: in 3D Autodesk ® Alias and as a physical model in a scale of 1:4. The contest's goal is to develop the Ferrari of the future, a pure hypercar, using technologies and materials of the latest generation. A supercar, extreme regarding its architecture and its functional aspects: hyper-light and hyper-fast, hyper-ecologic and hyper-technological. During this second stage, the students have to pay special attention to details and the interior's development, without leaving the car's functional aspects unconsidered.

The more than 200 projects, which arrived at Maranello, underlined great attention towards lowering consumption, combined with alternative powertrains, mainly focused on hybrids. Meanwhile the projects all have driving pleasure in common, ensured by weight reduction, while the design goes both ways: geometric or tortuous, with organic forms created by the students. It was a difficult selection process for the jury, under the presidency of Luca di Montezemolo, which decided unanimously, thanks to the works' quality, to raise the number of finalists to seven, compared to six schools scheduled for the contest's final stage.

The winners, with the results announced in July, will win an internship at Ferrari, and cash prizes. Autodesk will also present an award to the student team that best uses Autodesk Alias software to both communicate their design intent and demonstrate the process of design. The contest follows the tradition of Enzo Ferrari, brought forth by Chairman Montezemolo, supporting research and investing in young talents.

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