Rolls-Royce Motor Cars is delighted to announce the UK winner in its Young Designer Competition, which invited children around the world to design their dream Rolls-Royce of the future.
The UK winner is the Rolls-Royce Bumblebee 5000, designed by 11-year-old Sofia. As she explained in her entry, “The Bumblebee 5000 is the very best way to travel in and to have parties in with your family and friends. Moving smoothly, it will take you wherever you want to go with style and having fun. With comfortable tables and chairs, a disco ball, the best surround sound system, WIFI, GPS, driverless, a hook for luggage and much more, it makes it the best option in the automobile market. It changes colour depending on the occasion or season of your choice.” And with a confidence and certainty that Rolls-Royce can certainly relate to, she concludes: “You will never see something like it.”
Sofia’s design has been transformed into a beautiful digitally-rendered illustration by the Rolls‑Royce Design Team, using the same software and processes as they would in a ‘real’ Rolls-Royce design project. She will also enjoy a chauffeur-driven journey with her best friend in a Rolls-Royce to school.
In addition, Rolls-Royce is donating a complete Greenpower electric car kit to Sofia’s school, enabling its participation in in the Greenpower design-build-race challenge and it’s motorsport events. The Greenpower Education Trust is a UK-based charity with an outstanding track record in kick-starting careers in Science, Technology and Maths.
Devised to provide a creative outlet for children aged 16 and under, confined by Covid-19 lockdown restrictions, the competition attracted more than 5,000 entries from over 80 countries. With no rules or specified judging criteria to constrain them, children were able to let their imagination run free, creating designs of extraordinary richness, creativity and diversity.
Launched in April as lockdown conditions were imposed across the globe, the competition proved an instant success; so much so, the original deadline for entries was extended. Asked only to design their ‘dream Rolls-Royce of the future’, children had complete creative freedom, allowing them to develop ideas of astonishing scope, complexity and vision far beyond the realms of automotive design.
Reflecting on the competition, Torsten Müller-Ötvös, Chief Executive Officer, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, said, “On behalf of myself and everyone at Rolls-Royce, I would like to congratulate Sofia on her winning entry. Her design includes wonderfully creative ideas, is beautifully thought out and redraws the boundaries of what’s possible in a motor car – just like a real Rolls-Royce.”
He concluded, “The most important thing I’ve learned from this competition is that whatever our circumstances, we have the power to create amazing things, because our imagination is always free to fly. I hope the children who took part will recognise this, too, and that it will be something positive they can take from their pandemic experience.”
