Last year at the Beijing Motor Show, Peugeot announced a contest for budding car designers asking them to “Imagine the Peugeot in the Worldwide Megalopolis of tomorrow.” By all accounts, the contest was a success with over 2,500 entries. Carlos Arturo Torres Tovar, a 27-year-old designer from Columbia, has been named the winner, which comes with the prize of seeing his Peugeot RD concept design come to life as a full-size clay model, a check for 10,000 euros and an Xbox 360 game console.Apparently, tomorrow’s Peugeot will seat a single occupant, have three wheels and combine the ability to lean into turns like a motorcycle or scooter with the safety and security of a four-wheeled sedan. Of course, no auto concept for the future would be complete without an electric powertrain, and this one’s no different. The concept is currently being shown at the Shanghai Motor Show.

Last year, former McLaren designer Jim Dowle presented his P1 prototype sports car to great acclaim. The response at the time was tremendous. This singularly striking vehicle was conceived as an affordable sports model and as a potential challenger to the Lotus Exige. In the intervening period, Dowle has taken his initial design forward and the P1 has now become the P1-E. The letter E stands for the electric drivetrain and thus for the first sports car powered by an electric motor. By moving in this direction, its designer has bowed to current sentiment and lined his project up under the ‘green car’ banner. The drivetrain with its lithium-ion batteries and twin electric motors powering all four wheels doesn’t exactly come cheap: the price is likely to be around the $75,000 mark. The acceleration figures are sensational: 0 to 60mph in 2.9 seconds. The range between recharges is 230 miles. The four-wheel drive provides the vehicle with maximum traction. A regenerative braking system on each wheel comes as standard. Dowle says of the P1’s further development: “Up to now, cars with electric motors have not exerted any great attraction for motoring enthusiasts. We set out to bring an affordable electric sports car onto the market, one that would combine all the advantages of a conventional machine with those of electrical drive technology, at the same time dispensing with all the disadvantages of both. In short, we wanted to build a car for the 21st century.” The P1-E prototype is due to be presented some time this year; however, there are a few funding issues to sort out first

Many independent designers have tried to capture the Ferrari spirit in their conceptual proposals, but to be completely honest, very few have really succeeded. Unfortunately for designer Paolo Rosa, we’d classify this study for a smaller mid-engined Ferrari sportscar -supposedly inspired by the 1967 Dino 246 GT- in the first category. In our opinion, the worst design aspect of the Ferrari Dino Rosa is the rather generic front-end. Hit the jump to check out more photos of Rosa’s 1:10 scale model that is currently on display at the “Dreaming the Automobile” Exhibition hosted by the Museo dell’Automobile Bonfanti-Vimar in Italy.

[Source: Museo dell'Automobile , Via: Carbodydesign]