RCA Future Car Challenge 2021

London's Royal Automobile Club (RAC) is hosting an exhibition of artwork created by students enrolled in the RCA's Vehicle Design program.

The artwork is intended to complement the RAC's Future Car Challenge, which will take place tomorrow, Saturday November 5, the day before the historical London to Brighton Veteran Car Run. The challenge requires entrants to drive a 60-mile route from Brighton to London using the least amount of energy and will see a wide range of energy-efficient vehicles participate.

"What is fantastic about this event is that it brings old and new together," the RCA's Dean of Design, Dale Harrow, told CDN. "We don't know what the future holds but we're in that pioneering stage and we have that pioneering spirit."

Entitled Future Car Challenge 2021 and comprising the visions of the 18 first year students on the course, the project aims to encapsulate the spirit of the Future Car Challenge a decade from now. Students were asked to develop an art piece to that end in a scant two-week period.

The students, coming from a number of countries including Korea, China, Israel, Spain and Germany as well as the UK, were shown Genevieve, a classic 1950s film documenting the London to Brighton run "to understand origins of motoring in UK," Harrow said. They were then asked to produce a single image which captured the pioneering spirit of the 1940s and the new age of motoring.

"We were asked to think about the whole vehicle – engineering and design language – in the iconic situation of the London to Brighton run," said Nir Siegel, a first year student from Israel. "Because we are car designers, not illustrators, we tried to create a passionate object. A lot of effort was given into visualizing what the vehicle would be like."

The RAC has a close association with the RCA Vehicle Design program, having hosted exhibitions of students' work in the past. This latest exhibition emphasizes the essential link between the young designers enrolled on the more than 40 year old program and the cars of tomorrow – as seen at the annual Future Car Challenge.

"I felt this was a unique and interesting opportunity to create our own artistic vision of how we see the future of the London to Brighton race," said Ewan Gallimore, a recent Coventry University graduate now studying at the RCA. "It stretched me to create something where the feeling that the image conveyed was more important than the design itself."

The exhibition will remain on display in the RAC's Hanging Room until the end of November.

By Eric Gallina