Designer from Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Detroit Auto Show

Torres won with the design of the Rugged automobile, a model he used to participate in the Michelin Challenge Design, a contest created ten years ago in United States by Michelin, with the purpose of promoting and showing the talent and creativity of the vehicle design.

The Michelin Challenge Design is a test for all the designers of the world, and this year the event wanted the vehicle projects to have a close relation with the local environment of the designer"s country.

"Rugged did great in the contests because it was closely related to the current problems in Colombia regarding automobile production," affirmed Torres, "and the problem is that in our country we do not produce cars because we don"t have the technology, as  a result, we don"t design them, we just assemble them," he asserted.

The designer also mentioned that he thought about these problems to start his project, in addition to the fact that in the country there are talented designers to model and work with tubular material (which is economical) to create the image of the vehicle.

The Rugged has a tubular skeleton, a good suspension for all the seats, the floor is made of an special net to keep it dry in humid conditions, and its functionality would be linked to farms and rural areas. 

Torres won a reputation for winning the 2008 fifth edition of the Peugeot Design Contest.

"This award is very important for me, not only because it is the second Exposhow I have participated after Shanghái, but also because it proves that winning the Peugeot contest was not a coincidence," explained Torres.

The Detroit Auto Show is one of the most important events in the world when talking about cars and engines.

Darío Narváez and Sergio Ortiz were two other Colombians in this exhibition in the United States.

If you want to read more about the work of this talented designer from Universidad Nacional de Colombia, please visit http://www.000cat000.com.