Michelin announced the winners of the global 2018 Michelin Challenge Design, “Mobility/Utility/Flexibility — Designing for the Next Global Revolution.” Works by individuals and teams of designers from Argentina, Brazil, China, France, India, Italy, Poland, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, United Kingdom and the United States were among the winners and finalists selected by a distinguished jury of the world’s top automotive designers and industry experts.

“Once again, our jury of top automotive designers was impressed by the creativity, innovation and quality of the entries,” said Thom Roach, vice president of original-equipment marketing for Michelin North America. “The biggest surprise was the interest in pick-ups, or open-bedded vehicles, from so many unexpected places and how designers saw the opportunity for such vehicles to meet the needs in their respective countries or regions. Given the surprising growth in SUV and CUV categories around the world, it will be very interesting to see if pick-ups and open-bedded vehicles also grow well beyond the traditional markets. We have already seen early signs with new concepts and vehicles from Mercedes Benz, Hyundai, PSA and others recently introduced or announced.”

The three winning designs, six additional finalists and eight honorable mentions were chosen by the jury from among more than 1,200 registrants representing 73 countries. Over 17 years, Michelin Challenge Design has received more than 12,000 entries from 126 countries.

The Winners of the 2018 Michelin Challenge Design are as follows:

First place: Josh Sandrock of San Diego, Calif., USA, for design entry “Volkswagen Type 10 Pick Up”

Second place: Daniel Yee of Cleveland, Ohio; Marcus Hamilton of Columbus, Ohio; and Claire Keys Pytlik of Cincinnati, Ohio, USA, for “Michelin ToolBOX Pick Up”

Third place: Vinod Pakalapati and Surya Konijeti of Pune, India for “X Pick

The Updated List of Finalists for the 2018 Michelin Challenge Design (in alphabetical order):

• Benoit Aubertin of Ciboure, France, and Antoine Alaurent of Saucats, France, for design entry “Woodcutter Climber”
• Hawon Jang of Ansan, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea, for “Mini Square”
• Wojciech Jurkowski of Krakow, Poland, for “Renault Subtil”
• Yixing Liao, Wei Wang, Hangbin Xu, Kang Zeng, Daiqi Fan and Jiali Han of Hangzhou, China, for “UFORCE 16”
• Alfred Munkenbeck of London, United Kingdom, for “Sherpa”
• Thomas Weger of Edgerton, Wis., USA, for “MSW Pick Up”

Additionally, the jury chose to recognize the following eight entries as Honorable Mentions in the 2018 Michelin Challenge Design (in alphabetical order):

• Mattia Brunelli and Luigi Marrocu of Rome, Italy, for “Mini Sandman”
• Mo Mingqi of Guilin-Guangxi, China, and Xu Ying of Hengshui-Hebei Province, China, for “Gemini”
• Brian Hernan Isabella of Lanus, Buenos Aires, Argentina, for “ALEDAN”
• Mohammed Ismail of Mandya, Karnataka, India, for “SAM Self Assembling Module”
• Dr. Hussein Ali Al Jammazi of Jeddah City, Saudi Arabia, for “NAMLA” Fernando
• Machado of Curitiba, Brazil, for “Liger”
• Seunghee Seo of Daegu, South Korea, for “Moving Farm”
• Jiachen Zhu of Wuhan, China, for “FoldEx Urban Logistic Pick Up”