From the official Press Release:

A group of three graduates from Coventry University’s Automotive-Design MA course has joined forces to design a customisable youth car for the international market.

With Scion in their sights, they intend to create a vehicle that can cross international cultural markets, and they will be presenting their design to OEM’s worldwide.

The group aim to have a finished 3D model for presentation purposes within 8 weeks.

Kazanori Inomota, Edward Stubbs and Mujammil Khan-Muztar, graduated in December 2006 and recently started the project to develop a future iconic vehicle for 2020.

“We were exploring ideas for a future car,” says Edward Stubbs, “and the idea of separatism was something we wanted to explore.”

It comes from the Japanese notion of ‘Harajuku’ gangs, where trendy teenagers create their own fashion and deliberately try to stand out from their peers.

The idea of customising their car appeals to these people and encourages a stronger bond between the owner and their car.

It’s a common trend with personalised iPods, mobile phones and other gadgets, and is something likely to grow.

Mujammil continues, “It doesn’t have to mean crazy paint-jobs and stick-on flames; more likely people will want a ‘music-studio option’ or a ‘gaming experience option’, which represents what’s important in their life.”

They looked at Scion, which explored a similar cultural market in North America with great success, and Smart, to explore the long-term lifestyle implications of using our cars.

Kazanori: “It’s entirely possible that in the future we can be using our cars as surrogate homes and offices, so we intend to explore the ‘liveability’ of the car.”