Ford Reveals Real-World Team Fordzilla P1 Race Car
Photo: Ford
Earlier this year — about two centuries before the pandemic took hold — Ford reached out to the gamers and amateur designers in its fan base with a little task: help design a virtual race car for its esports team. The resulting Team Fordzilla P1 race car is a thing of beauty, but one seemingly destined to only ever live in the interwebs and the cybersphere. Or so we thought. Ford this month revealed that it has brought the Team Fordzilla P1 race car to life as a full-scale physical model.
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Ford designers, fans collaborate virtually
Ford lauds its Team Fordzilla P1 race car as the first vehicle ever built digitally. Exterior designer Arturo Ariño and interior designer Robert Englemann and their respective teams never met in-person to put the digital vehicle together. Instead, all collaboration was done virtually, allowing the work to be spread out across five countries and completed in seven weeks.
“This project had so many firsts. It was the first fully digital project for us. It was the first car to be designed publicly with full transparency and the first we’ve ever designed remotely with designers located in five different countries, some of whom have never met face to face,” said Ford of Europe Design Manager Boris Ferko. “That we completed it all in less than half of the usual time is a real testament to the team and the passion they had for the project.”
On top of that, Ford turned to fans to help put the car together. Ford would put up polls on Twitter encouraging fans to vote for their preferred features. Ford says around 250,000 fans voted on components like seating setup, cockpit, and engine positioning.
Photos: Team Fordzilla P1 race car
As for the physical build, the Team Fordzilla P1 race car uses a monocoque structure and a transparent, jet fighter-like canopy. More importantly, it’s just dripping with sweet gamer references: acronyms and hashtags abound throughout the vehicle, including gems like GLHF — or good luck, have fun— and #levelup. How fun!
Though the Team Fordzilla P1 race car lives in physical form, it doesn’t seem to be drivable. There’s no mention of a powertrain or performance dynamics, so think of this more as a 1:1 model that just looks super cool. Maybe Ford will sell a kit for collectors eventually? Who knows. 2021 is finna be wild, so let’s not rule anything out just yet.
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Kyle S. Johnson lives in Cincinnati, a city known by many as “the Cincinnati of Southwest Ohio.” He enjoys professional wrestling, Halloween, and also other things. He has been writing for a while, and he plans to continue to write well into the future. See more articles by Kyle.