UK WINNER REVEALED IN WORLDWIDE ROLLS-ROYCE YOUNG DESIGNER COMPETITION

• Rolls-Royce Motor Cars announces UK winner in its Young Designer Competition
• Selected by Rolls-Royce Design Team from more than 5,000 entries submitted online by children in over 80 countries during Covid-19 lockdown
• Rolls-Royce Motor Cars is donating a complete Greenpower electric car kit to the winner’s school, enabling its participation in the future Greenpower motorsport events

“We are delighted to announce the UK winner in our Young Designer Competition. The entries that stood out for us were those that showed a real depth of thought, effort and expression, and incorporated lots of different details. The best didn’t just draw ‘the nicest car’: they created amazing experiences that showed the freedom of their imagination, not hindered by physical, real-world constraints. The winning entry is quite extraordinary.”
Torsten Müller-Ötvös, Chief Executive Officer, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars

“We were particularly drawn to Bumblebee 5000 because it’s all about sociability, having fun, sharing good times and enjoying the finer things in life, which is exactly what Rolls‑Royce is all about, too. It also reflected our own interest as a company in the natural world and bees in particular: we have our own resident colony of 250,000 English honey bees at Goodwood, who diligently produce the ‘Rolls-Royce of Honey’ for us every year.”
Gavin Hartley, Head of Bespoke Design, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars

Rolls-Royce Motor Cars is delighted to announce the UK winner in its Young Designer Competition, which invited children around the world to design their dream Rolls-Royce of the future.

The UK winner is the Rolls-Royce Bumblebee 5000, designed by 11-year-old Sofia. As she explained in her entry, “The Bumblebee 5000 is the very best way to travel in and to have parties in with your family and friends. Moving smoothly, it will take you wherever you want to go with style and having fun. With comfortable tables and chairs, a disco ball, the best surround sound system, WIFI, GPS, driverless, a hook for luggage and much more, it makes it the best option in the automobile market. It changes colour depending on the occasion or season of your choice.” And with a confidence and certainty that Rolls-Royce can certainly relate to, she concludes: “You will never see something like it.”

Sofia’s design has been transformed into a beautiful digitally-rendered illustration by the Rolls‑Royce Design Team, using the same software and processes as they would in a ‘real’ Rolls-Royce design project. She will also enjoy a chauffeur-driven journey with her best friend in a Rolls-Royce to school.

In addition, Rolls-Royce is donating a complete Greenpower electric car kit to Sofia’s school, enabling its participation in the Greenpower design-build-race challenge and its motorsport events. The Greenpower Education Trust is a UK-based charity with an outstanding track record in kick-starting careers in Science, Technology and Maths.

Devised to provide a creative outlet for children aged 16 and under, confined by Covid-19 lockdown restrictions, the competition attracted more than 5,000 entries from over 80 countries. With no rules or specified judging criteria to constrain them, children were able to let their imagination run free, creating designs of extraordinary richness, creativity and diversity.

Launched in April as lockdown conditions were imposed across the globe, the competition proved an instant success; so much so, the original deadline for entries was extended. Asked only to design their ‘dream Rolls-Royce of the future’, children had complete creative freedom, allowing them to develop ideas of astonishing scope, complexity and vision far beyond the realms of automotive design.

Reflecting on the competition, Torsten Müller-Ötvös, Chief Executive Officer, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, said, “On behalf of myself and everyone at Rolls-Royce, I would like to congratulate Sofia on her winning entry. Her design includes wonderfully creative ideas, is beautifully thought out and redraws the boundaries of what’s possible in a motor car – just like a real Rolls-Royce.”

He concluded, “The most important thing I’ve learned from this competition is that whatever our circumstances, we have the power to create amazing things, because our imagination is always free to fly. I hope the children who took part will recognise this, too, and that it will be something positive they can take from their pandemic experience.”