The LA Design Challenge 2010

This year's Design Challenge was awarded at the Los Angeles Auto Show for the 7th time and the winning designs 2010 came from the studios of GM entering the Cadillac Aera and Daimler's brand smart entering the 454 design study. 

The Challenge

The major automotive design studios of California were invited to develop an efficient, light-weight, four passenger vehicle (not to exceed 1,000 lbs./454 kg kerb weight), that is both comfortable and safe, while delivering satisfactory driving performance without sacrificing the styling consumers demand. For the first time studios from Germany and Japan took part in the competition.

Clearly, the challenge 2010 was referring to the need for society to minimize consumption of the earth's resources and produce and consume more sustainably. With this topic as inspiration, the studios took the notion of car production of the future to a whole new level. Entries encompassed visions of cars growing from seeds, luxury tourers and runabouts powered by air and wind and small cars knit by robots.

Browse our slideshow above for images of the design studies, or click to the links below to look at each car in more detail:

Cadillac Aera - Lightweight Luxury Driving
Honda Air - Roller Coaster Drive
MAYBACH DRS - Electric Luxury Rickshaw
MAZDA MX-0 - Lightweight Driving
Mercedes-Benz BIOME - Ecologically Integrated Car
Nissan iV - Car made from Organic Synthetics
smart 454 - The Knit-Car
Toyota NORI Concept - Car made from Bioplastics
Volvo Air Motion - Air powered runabout