Future Fiat 500 and Fiat Panda imagined by design students

Students at the Royal College of Art in London were challenged to redesign the Fiat 500 and the Fiat Panda for the year 2020. Part of Fiat's "Two of a Kind" design training experience stretching out over three months, the competition attracted more than 50 entries. The design challenge was more than a competition to design the most effective exterior, as students were divided into several interdisciplinary teams and tasked with developing new solutions for the interiors and exteriors of both cars, integrating such concepts as interactivity, sustainability and global appeal into their designs.

At the end of the design project, 10 students' works were selected as the finalists, earning their creators on-the-job training at Fiat's design headquarters in Turin, Italy, from July 2014 to January 2015.

Fiat
The 'Fiat Spresso' by Alexander Ibbett and Liza Ricciardi.

Alexander Ibbett and Liza Ricciardi's Fiat 500 "Spresso" concept forcusing on interior design earned them a spot in Fiat's Turin program. Judges were also impressed by Pierra Andlauer's exterior design for a futuristic Fiat 500. Ji Won Yun's design titled "Panda Roomy" also earned him a spot in the program next year, alongside the Panda "Hug" interior design proposal by Francesco Binaggia. The 10 selected designs will eventually be made into clay models.

In picking the top-10 winning designs, judges evaluated stylistic value, functionality, innovation, originality and market coherence, among other criteria. The final presentations were made to Lorenzo Ramaciotti, head of global design for Fiat-Chrysler, Andreas Wuppinger of EMEA Design Fiat, and the teachers and staff of the Royal College of Art.

By Jay Ramey