Hydrogen met high design as Coventry students reimagined the supercar – lighter, cleaner and ready to disrupt
Supporting up-and-coming designers is vital for the future of the automotive industry, and Riversimple’s recent collaboration with Coventry University did exactly this.
Back in August last year, 14 postgraduate students at Coventry University’s School of Automotive and Transportation Design were challenged to design interior and exterior themes for a Riversimple hydrogen electric supercar.
Sustainability was at the core of this project, moving away from the excessive weight of today’s hypercars to something lighter and more agile.
With judges including ex-Jaguar design chief Ian Callum (and present head of design at Callum) Bentley’s head of interior design Darren Day and Riversimple founder Hugo Spowers, the process was, as one judge put it, “ruthless.”
The students presented initial sketches, CAD developments and a clay model, and were then quizzed on their concepts by the panel of judges.
I was really searching for a look that rebels against the hyper-aggressive styling so prevalent right now
The result? A standout winning design by 22-year-old Haoyan Bai. His intelligent vision for the Riversimple supercar captured the panel’s imagination, balancing proportion, lightness and sophistication. Bai’s influencers were evident, with a subtle nod to the classic forms of Pinky Lai’s Porsche 911.
Spowers commented: “I was really searching for a look that rebels against the hyper-aggressive styling so prevalent right now. Sophistication, timelessness and lightness were key for me; the fact that this supercar will be treading lightly in every way needs to be expressed with finesse.”
Spowers added that from the outset, “Haoyan Bai captured the grace and balance I was after; while accommodating and enhancing the radically different fuel cell engineering. Although Bai took the prize, we were very impressed overall with the way all of the students responded so professionally and artfully to this brief.”
Runners-up included Yuyong Yin, Bo Silkens and Zefan Chang.
No comments yet