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Peterbilt & Local Motors "Roll Out" a Truck Cab Design Competition

By Rain Noe - June 7, 2012

in Competition | Cars

I'm a Mack

I'm a Mack

I'm a PB

I'm a PB

Optimus Prime was a Mack truck in the cartoons, but in the Transformers movies he switched over to Peterbilt. And if the Peterbilt brand is good enough for the leader of the Autobots, they're surely worthy of your design attention.

Peterbilt Motors, in conjunction with (Core77 Design Awards Transportation Judge) Local Motors, is holding a competition to redesign their next-generation Peterbilt Icon cab. Entrants are asked to incorporate traditional Peterbilt styling into the new RIG2 (Road Icon Generation 2), to "Provide a design to stir the emotions of the owner while still communicating practicality and functionality."

The competition's splash page is pretty helpful, spelling out the terminology of the parts entrants will need to be fluent in, and both Photoshop and CAD models are provided to serve as underlays.

Here's a quick look at how you've got some wiggle room with some of the underpinnings:

There's also a series of graphics demonstrating aerodynamics, as they're clearly looking for something swoopier than the boxy current model.

As thorough as it is, the brief mentions nothing about anti-robot battle-worthiness; so I think we can safely assume that, as seen in Michael Bay's latest documentary, our world has been rid of the Decepticon scourge forever.

Check out all of the RIG2 competition's requirements, guidelines, and deliverables here.

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J.P

10 years ago

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actually the original optimus prime was a kenworth k100 aerodyne--not a mack..---good article though....
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trialex

12 years ago

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Does anyone know what CFD program was used for the last image?
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Mart

12 years ago

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The first prize here is an insult to industrial designers, and I can only imagine this would appeal to semi-professional or amateur designers in places like India where $7500 works out to "real" money. I mean - look at all those deliverables! This is effectively - "design us a new cab, and if we like it we'll pay you." How is that any way to do earn a living from the designer's perspective? So Core77 is actively in favor of ever-cheaper outsourcing of design talent now?
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