Winner Announced During Fifth Annual Design Los Angeles Conference

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, the design entry from Mazda R&D of North America was chosen as the winner of the Los Angeles Auto Show's 2008 Design Challenge. This year's theme, Motor Sports 2025, asked nine of Southern California's automotive design studios to form their vision of the future by depicting a motor sports vehicle that predicts how auto racing will change by the year 2025.

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The Mazda Kann was chosen for how well it integrated a high level of innovation and technology into the design, as well as its truly unique styling. The Mazda Kann is an electric race car that has a patented electronic tire system to reach 250 mph with no harmful emissions. The vehicles are piloted by individual drivers but teams are made up of thirty cars, all on the track together.

Design studios, including Audi, BMW, GM, Honda, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota and Volkswagen, entered two-dimensional renderings and concept descriptions that incorporated innovative concepts and approaches to explore the world of motor sports seventeen years in the future.

Entries were judged by multi-discipline design professionals who selected the winner based on its originality of creative concept and integration of factors that helped to dramatically improve speed, power, performance and safety. In the past, participating studios have received impressive amounts of worldwide exposure among peers and media.

'The scope of the entries this year was very impressive and in the end it came down to which team had the most innovative and artistic design that could go beyond the expectations and challenges of racing today,' said Chuck Pelly, director of Design Los Angeles and partner in The Design Academy, Inc. 'Mazda's designers created an optimistic vision of 2025 and ultimately brought unique styling back to motor sports.'

The purpose of the Design Challenge is to pit the auto manufacturers' Los Angeles-based design studios against one another. Designers enjoy participating in the challenge because it is a strong venue to showcase their talents and further explore new ideas in automotive design. More information, including images, is available at http://www.LAAutoShow.com/DesignChallenge.html.

SOURCE Los Angeles Auto Show