Designers Imagine the Le Mans Racers of 2030

Michelin and Automobile Club de l’Ouest announced the winners of the global 2017 Michelin Challenge Design competition, the theme of which was “Le Mans 2030: Design for the Win.”

As the theme implies, entrants created captivating designs for the 2030 edition of the world’s greatest endurance race, 24 Hours of Le Mans. Innovative designs by individuals and teams from Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Czech Republic, India, Portugal, and Russia were among the lucky winners. A top-notch jury of automotive designers and industry experts picked the best designs out of 1600 entries from 80 countries, and you can see a number of the best ones in the gallery below.

“There is a phenomenal array of creativity on display. The quality level, the thought, the understanding and the interpretation of the technology and how that folds into the aesthetics from a design perspective from all over the world is what Le Mans is all about,” said juror Tom Peters of GM, in a release.

Tao Ni of China snagged the top spot for “Infiniti Le Mans 2030” (pictured above). Second place went to Daniel Bacelar Pereira of Portugal for “Bentley 9 Plus Michelin Battery Slick,” and Kurt Scanlan of Canada took third place for his “Cierzo C1.”

“The winners of our 2017 Michelin Challenge Design presented numerous highly innovative features for the Le Mans race in the year 2030 and the quality of work from this year’s entries was truly outstanding,” said Thom Roach, vice president of marketing for Michelin North America.

Finalists of the challenge included Mehdi Alamdari and Vahid Shahvirdi, Carlos Eduardo de Carvalho, Josh Gadomski, Guilherme Kataoka, Luiz Ortega and Marcelo, Vruttant S. Phatak, Vladislav Semenov and Maria Ryadno, and David Voltner.

“Many of the designs took on a holistic approach. From the cars to the racing suits to how the cars pit and the graphics that were included. They told a story. It wasn’t just about the race car,” said Ford juror Craig Metros.

Michelin will invite the top winners to the 2017 Detroit auto show and the lucky winner Tao Ni will be recognized at the next running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2017.

“What I like about these entries is they didn’t tell a long story. They let the images tell the story,” said juror Richard Plavetich of Nissan.

We couldn’t agree more. Check out the gallery of winning images below.

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