If you’ve heard about the “Boaty McBoatface” incident, you’d probably think that taking advice for anything official off the internet probably isn’t a very good idea. But somehow, Ford managed to make it work, and they even made it into an actual physical model to show for it.
This here is the P1 Concept, released under the Team Fordzilla umbrella – Ford’s own esports team. The Fordzilla P1 Concept is designed in part by the team’s Twitter followers, who were given the chance to vote on different aspects of the P1 Concept’s styling through a series of eight polls on the social media platform.
After 250,000 votes, Ford’s designers then went to work based on the design brief, while also opening up opportunities for designers to submit their own fan-based renders. Four proposals were released in April where fans can vote for their favourite one, and the final render – designed by Arturo Ariño and Robert Engelmann was chosen as the final winner.
As the Fordzilla P1 Concept is designed to be a virtual race car first and foremost, it is able to try things that are just not possible in the real world. And the results of it is just simply stunning.
Based on a monocoque structure, the Fordzilla P1 Concept features a large “hyper-transparent jet fighter-style” canopy covering the cockpit, a front-end design inspired by the Ford GT, and the most impressive of all, a completely exposed rear-end – somewhat like the Bugatti Bolide, but a lot more extreme.
But despite its digital design brief, that doesn’t mean that the car won’t look good in the flesh too. Ford also took the design and made it into a full-sized physical model, which they will hopefully tour it at shows and events throughout Europe in 2021 so gamers can see their creation in the metal.
Ford Europe’s Design Director Amko Leenarts said during the presentation of the concept: “It was a really incredible process for the whole team here at Ford. Not just because it’s something that none of us has done before, but also because we discovered gamers make the perfect co-designers.
“It makes perfect sense when you think about it. Gaming, especially esports, is all about the thrill of movement, being fast, agile, competitive and most of all being enjoyable.”
GALLERY
