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The shape of things to come?

4th June 2009, Page 32
4th June 2009
Page 32
Page 32, 4th June 2009 — The shape of things to come?
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CM recently teamed up with DesignerTechniques to challenge young automotive designers to give us their vision of the truck of the future. This is what they came up with...

tf„0, Weatilei key Ever wondered what kind of truck you'll he running in 2029? We certainly have. Recently CM joined forces with DesignerTechniques, the Scandinavian website that teaches design skills, together with Letraset and DesignSketching to launch a competition for automotive designers — but there's an unusual twist.

Instead of simply giving them the brief to come up with 'tomorrow's truck', we asked entrants to pick a nonautomotive big-name brand (such as Apple, Sony, Nike, Google, Starbucks) and research its corporate values while simultaneously studying the requirements of a typical truck (in any world market).

Armed with that information, they then had to create a truck design that "offers an improvement over the equivalent vehicle on the market today, but one that also represents and reflects the values of your chosen brand': Besides that, they were free to he as creative as they wished! CM can now bring you the fruits of their labours The competition organisers drafted in some real HGV judging experts in the shape of Scania Trucks design chief Kristofer Hansen, as well as David Beasley, designer at the internationally-renowned design studio Pininfarina, The solutions offered by the 60-plus entrants — not least in terms of their choice of drivetrain and propulsion systems — were as varied as the famous brands they chose for their inspiration. So are these simply futuristic sketches... or practical solutions for tomorrow's commercial vehicles? You decide! • Flavio Michellod: Black & Decker Tipper. Michellod's inspiration came from the power tool-maker. His modular-construction, toughlooking Hexagon dump truck is based around a central tubular frame that includes its electric motors, AC/DC inverter, gearbox and battery pack. MountIng points on the central frame tube take the cab and the dump body. Inside the cab there's a reversible steering column to allow it to operate in left or right-hand-drive markets.


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