Carmakers sometimes run design contests and receive lots of entries, and then choose the best submissions to award prizes to, and publicise. But that’s usually as far as it goes, and the winning designs do not become physical realities.
With the #OpelDesignHack event, the German carmaker took the claim of the challenge – “You design it, we build it” – literally and had its engineers build the winning submission by Lukas Wenzhofer – the Rocks e-XTREME concept.
The concept is based on the Rocks Electric, which is already available for sale and can be driven by children from 2 to 15 years old (in certain European countries). Industrial design student Wenzhofer gave it a more extreme look as he turned it into an all-terrain fun vehicle with a ‘wow factor’.
“The Opel Rocks-e enables young people to be mobile and to enjoy an unfiltered driving experience. My concept takes these points and moves them to the extreme. The off-road capability promotes the feeling of freedom to reach any destination. And the increased sportiness promises more driving fun to show that electric mobility is more than just a commonsense solution,” explained Wenzhofer.
Though only one unit was to be produced, the Rocks e-XTREME was built with the same care and attention as an Opel concept car. It was a challenging task that the engineers at Opel set themselves in recent months, as they wanted to stay as close as possible to the 3D model when building the one-off.
The characteristics included protruding wheels for a wide, secure stance, double wishbones at the front and a bright yellow roll-over hoop. The Opel Vizor has also been reinterpreted and equipped with LED front lights and the Opel logo accentuated in turquoise.
To keep the weight low and to support the performance of the electric motor, the vizor and mudguards were produced using 3D printing. A highlight is the prominent rear wing made of carbonfibre, an original wing from the Vectra GTS V8 that now carries the emblem ‘e-XTREME’ and the serial number ‘001’.
