Mumbai: Indian Institute of Technology - Bombay (IIT-B) studentJohn Paul Xavier bags the award for the ‘Design the Next Chevrolet’ contest held in association with Autocar India, at an event in Mumbai on Friday. John Paul Xavier, an aspiring automotive design engineer, a student of IIT-Bombay in the product design department, will get a Chevrolet Beat as his prize.
As per sources, the contest, kicked off in September last year, received more than 1,200 entries. Sumit Sawhney, vice president, sales, marketing & aftersales, General Motors India, while commenting on the designs said they were outstanding. Students had done a great work over these models. He also added that in the coming years, they will see more Asian and Indian designs adopted by car manufacturers. He also mentioned that he see manufacturers bringing their design studios to India in the coming years.
Sources also informed that apart from Sawhney, the jury for the contest comprised Karl Slym, president and managing director, General Motors India, design expert Dilip Chabbria, Hormazd Sorabjee, editor in chief, Autocar India and Anil Saini, director - GM India Design, Global Network Teams. Mr Sawhney talking to the media at the event said the company will be introducing six new vehicles by the year 2011-2012 in about 14 different fuel variants. He mentioned that at this time, he cannot share the specifics of this, but they will launch these six vehicles in 14 different fuel options.
Furthermore, talking about a few plans which are on, Sawhney said that the company will be soon launching its Beat and Spark model with LPG fuel option. He, however, refused to comment on introducing an electric vehicle. In addition, he said that they will be showcasing something very interesting on this front very soon. They have already launched Chevrolet Volt in North America. GM is working on a lot of environmental friendly solutions and our Bangalore research centre in also supporting global research work.
