Mazda tried their hand at engaging with younger generations through the use of Facebook in a recent concept car design contest. The Mazda Design Challenge asked Facebook users to help design the 2018 Mazda3, the manufacturer’s best international selling vehicle.
To wrap up the challenge, Franz von Holzhausen, director of Mazda Design and his team, along with contest winner, will create a clay concept car live at the upcoming LA Auto Show. To enter, contestants submitted a 150-word description of their vision of the 2018 MAZDA3 and an optional sketch drawing. The Mazda Design team then judged each entry, choosing 10 semi-finalists.
Five finalists were chosen by the Facebook community, and each of the five finalists were paired with a Mazda designer to hone their concept, which was then judged and voted on in a second round by fellow Facebook members.
"The Mazda Design Challenge brought in a flood of cool, unique design ideas. The winning design concept is a fresh new way to look at the design of a vehicle," said von Holzhausen. "This competition was a tremendous success, and this entire process was really beneficial to my team and me to understand what design means to our target buyers. Now the hard part comes -- to see if we can actually build a full concept car on the show stand in 10 days and in full view of show goers."
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