Local Motors - Crowd Sourced Car Design

I stumbled across these guys and am presumably late to the party, as this custom car idea has taken off quickly. What I like about the company is that after reading more indepth on their business foundation, you can quickly see that good ideas are embraced as its open sourced design and engineering, as fans get to vote and submit ideas for review. It could easily be thought that maybe the founders didn't want to hire a design team and could get free ideas from the masses, but if that is the case, they are doing it the right way. Local Motors is rewarding the winning designs with actual assembly and becoming a production model.

Case in point is the Rally Fighter, which was designed by Sangho Kim. There was so much excitement around the design that Local Motors enlisted it to be built as a production model. Dig into these guys as what I am seeing is a wave of the future. If we as consumers want niche and specialized products, more and more companies such as Local Motors will be founded. Best part about this particular design is that its ultimately customizable and street legal.

This is my vote for crowd sourcing design and engineering, lets get behind a few existing ones that have already created great products, but need more attention and fuel to keep the fires lit. Yes, let's get behind Erik Buell, the man who created Buell Motorcycles and help to revive it from the ashes that Harley decided to leave it to. His bikes are top notch engineering and are meant to be ridden. With enough outcry maybe just maybe they could get back to making street bikes once again and not tethered to Harley.

Buell Motorcycles

Local Motors Custom Cars