Is Peugeot the biggest winner in its design competition?When you're asked to do some 'thinking outside the box', or your boss's favourite version of that phrase, are you ever tempted to get someone outside the company's box to do the thinking for you? It's what the glamorous consultancies get paid so much for, but Peugeot has worked out a way of doing it differently. Over the past four years, Peugeot has run a competition for aspiring car designers, with prizes including a cup, € 6000 in prize money, and a trip at their expense to the Frankfurt motor show, where the winning design is made into a life-size model. There's also the element of fame, as being a winner means that a 1:35 scale model of your car will be distributed, and, naturally, a big presence in Peugeot's webpages. And 2007's winner has the bonus prize of being included in the Xbox game, Project Gotham Racing. Having an Xbox in the glove compartment, then, probably helped 2007's Romanian winner, the Flux, to rise above its four thousand competitors. But even discounting the fillip for the sponsor, it's a bit lovely as cars go. It's designed to the competition brief, which wanted cars that would P.L.E.A.S.E. - standing for Pleasurable, Lively, Efficient, Accessible, Simple and Ecological, which it achieves with a zippy-looking lightweight body designed to hold a hydrogen engine. The Flux's predecessors are striking too - the Lion looks like an Art Deco Batmobile, and the Moovie puts its look somewhere between a Smart car and a Dyson vacuum cleaner. In a good way. I can't help noticing that the insurance worker in me is a little worried by the huge and breakable-looking windows in the Moovie, but as there's none of these on the road, that's fairly unnecessary. And if almost the whole car's a window, it'll be harder to be surprised by anything. With these being very much concept cars, perhaps that's what Peugeot will take from the design and gradually work it into its 206s and 307s. And with 19 other runner-up cars from each year, that's at least eighty fresh thoughts that the competition has brought in, all from outside Peugeot's office culture. Eighty fresh thoughts that have the potential to inspire in-house designers with must-have elements of Peugeot cars in the future. It's no surprise, then, to see that other car companies also run design competitions. Daihatsu, for example, ran a competition for their centenary year, and even Ferrari ran one in 2005. While Ferrari's winners are still recognisably Ferraris, Daihatsu selected a remarkably tank-like domed car that looks to me like it wouldn't be out of place if filled with Star Wars' stormtroopers. Daihatsu also offered the winning designer an internship, which, in the long run, may be a more valuable prize than the monetary award. Volvo is behind a challenge to create sporty materials, which could see themselves used in cars, but Citroen's new venture turns the concept over entirely. Rather than use design ideas of fresh eyes and experts to create a car, it's offered up the parts of its cars as 3-D models online for designers to use in reimaginings of other everyday products. At the time of writing, the Citroen competition is still open, meaning that we are yet to see toasters that use radiator grilles to separate the slices of bread, or whatever goes on to win. But that doesn't stop the office here wondering what kind of world it is that means you might need to take out motor insurance on your kitchen appliances. After all, there is already a range of Peugeot peppermills.
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