Rolls-Royce launches design competition for children, offering money-can't-buy prizes
Cultivating creative kids' talent during Covid-19 lockdown
LUXURY British car maker Rolls-Royce is challenging children to design the car of their dreams, with one lucky winner getting to see their entry rendered digitally by the brand’s professional designers.
Rolls says its Young Designer Competition is normally open only to employees and run at its Family Day Celebration, an annual event based at its Goodwood headquarters. However, it has been opened up to everyone this year as a way to for children to pass the time while under coronavirus lockdown.
In a statement, Rolls-Royce said it wants to: “Stimulate design talent; inspire greatness; and provide a welcome distraction from self-isolation and social-distancing measures being adopted by many countries around the globe.”
Aspiring designers up to the age of 16 are challenged to design their dream Rolls-Royce of the future with imagination and creativity seemingly prized more than practical considerations. The company release an example design showing the Rolls-Royce Crabmobile by “Thomas”, which features pincers, an orange and titanium body, and can drive on water.
Rolls-Royce points out that while it designs its cars to be ultimate expressions of luxury, most customers don’t buy its models “off the shelf”. Instead, each is customised as “a unique expression of the owner’s personality, imagination and creativity”. After all, when you’re paying upwards of £220,000 for a base Ghost Series II, you wouldn’t want it to be just like any other car.
Rolls says “anything is possible”, from bespoke paint and embroidery, to options such as the Starlight Headliner interior roof lining and customers’ own art and design installations.
“Aspiring designers entering the challenge can now draw on their own creativity and desires to imagine the design of their very own super-luxury car,” says Rolls-Royce.
The company’s design team judge the entries, selecting an overall winner to receive the rendered illustration of their design, which Rolls describes as “a true once-in-a-lifetime, money-can’t-buy prize”. The winner will also be able to drive their peers green with envy by arriving at school for the first day back after lockdown in a chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce Phantom. They will be able to take their best friend along for the ride, too.
Runners-up will receive a hand-signed certificate from Torsten Müller-Ötvös, the company’s Chief Executive Officer.
Another entrant from the UK will be chosen for two additional prizes: a chauffeur-driven trip to school in a Rolls-Royce plus a new Greenpower electric car kit, which will be donated to the recipients’ school, enabling participation in the Greenpower Challenge – “the UK’s number-one motor sport competition for schools across Britain”.
Young designers (up to the age of 16) interested in taking part can enter by visiting rolls-royceyoungdesignercompetition.com.
Watch our exclusive walkaround of Rolls-Royce Cullinan, its first SUV costing upwards of £250,000
