Stone drives away with first place in Dream Rides contest
By Adam Shaffer
Reprinted from Miami's Community Newspapers with permission.

Kendall resident and Miami magnet school Design & Architecture Senior High (DASH) student Ren Stone recently took home the top honors and a $3,000 scholarship with his Crossover Concept Car design in the Dream Rides Student Concept Vehicle Design Competition.

The contest was jointly-presented by Miami's Community Newspapers, the South Florida International Auto Show and the South East Automotive Media Organization. Through the sponsorship of the auto industry's top manufacturers including General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Nissan, Subaru, Toyota and Volvo a total of $8,500 in scholarship funds was awarded to eight of the 77 students that entered from all over Miami-Dade County.

The title of Stone's winning design referred to its unique nature. "The car crosses over certain normal descriptions of a vehicle," said Stone. "In today's market you have big cars because people love a lot of space in their vehicles, but at the same time you have small cars because our cities are getting more and more crowded. I figured, why sacrifice one luxury for another; why not figure out a way to make both work?"

Stone designed the car to fold in half through a hydraulic lift system located in the middle of the car. "It maximizes passenger capacity because the whole front section is completely dedicated to the passengers," he said. "The engine and all other components are in the back, which actually folds under the car."

The second and third place winners, receiving $2,000 and $1,000 scholarships respectively, attend DASH along with Stone. Second place went to Orhan Cileli of Miami and his Intel. His design, which targeted the disabled, was inspired by his summer job. "This summer I was able to work with United Cerebral Palsy," said Cileli. "I got a glimpse of how people with cerebral palsy woke up in the morning and got to work. They used regular vans with a hydraulic lift and it seemed very uncomfortable for them."

Like Cileli, third place winner Hector Rodriguez of Hialeah designed his Ikarus with the disabled in mind. His inspiration was the county's Metrobus fitted with a motorized ramp. "My concept has a lowering ramp that you just drive a wheelchair into," he said. "There are no seats. The wheelchair serves as the seat and you just roll up to the steering wheel. If the driver is not able to use their legs, they can push the steering wheel forward for gas and back for breaks. All of the other functions would be voice activated."

Five honorable mentions, along with $500 of scholarship money, were awarded, with three going to DASH students Victor Fernandez of Hialeah, Kenneth Roberts of Miami Gardens and Marcus Collins of Mirimar. Other honorable mentions went to Leonardo Castaneda of Fontainbleau from the New World School of the Arts and Yoelmir Santana of Hialeah from Hialeah-Miami Lakes High School.

Designers and executives serving as the contest's seven judges were impressed by the presentation skills and professionalism shown by many of the entries. Contest judge Bill Ussery, southeast region public affairs manager for Toyota Motor Sales was surprised by the complexity of many of the submissions.

"Consideration was given for the marketability of the vehicle, the functionality and the design," said Ussery. "Many of the entrants wrote a three to four page thesis on their thinking for the future, how to be different and what market niches they were going after. These entries are an indication of the career direction that quite a few of these students should take. Hopefully with all the exposure and after people learn more about it, there will be even more entries next year."

Miami-Dade County Public Schools arts supervisor William Chiodo shared Ussery's admiration of the student work he judged. "If you spend the time to read the concepts then look at the image and make a match between the two, what you'll find is that there is a lot of high level thinking going on there and a lot of creativity," said Chiodo. "It makes me very proud of all these kids."

As a high school student at Miami Central, contest judge and acclaimed Coral Gables urban designer Tom Graboski was a regular entrant in local model car contests at the Orange Blossom Hobby Shop in Allapattah and later a national winner in the General Motors Fisher Body styling competition. He said that the Dream Rides contest was different from the ones he competed in as a youth in terms of its pool of entrants.

"There's a large number of ladies out there that designed cars for this contest," said Graboski. "You would think that this would be a guy-dominated thing but it's really not. The car companies have always been looking for more input from the female side of the population."

The other four judges included Miami photographer Carlos Llano, Miami-Dade Public Schools administrative director of the division of life skills and public projects Lilia Garcia, Subaru product planning and design manager Ron Will and Daimler-Chrysler eastern region public relations manager Scott Brown.