The 'event jacking' concept car

As car brands increasingly affiliate themselves with events, and the reason-to-be for auto shows concept cars wanes, so there is now marked opportunity for a new type of ‘event jacking' concept car

As Le Tour de France closes, Skoda banks the exposure its red Škoda Enyaq gained as the lead vehicle of an event watched by 3.5 billion people around the world (42 million in France alone). But beyond some minor modifications, Skoda had not changed the Enyaq design, which, given the scale of its exposure, highlights an opportunity for next year’s Skoda Tour lead vehicle to be more aligned to its Tour support role and cycling — an opportunity for a design that would hi-jack some of the spirit of the event to be more unique and expressive; an ‘event-jacking’ concept car.

In smaller ways this event-jacking form of concept car is already with us. At the Goodwood Festival of Speed earlier this month, brands including Polestar, MG, Mini and Red Bull brought concepts and prototypes that responded to the British racing heritage of the FoS - these designs ‘hit harder’ because of their alignment with the identity of the event they were being shown at.

Image © CAR Magazine, Goodwood and Motor1.

With the distinction between concept and production designs becoming smaller, and some brands showing ‘prototype’ vehicles that are part of the their R&D function, there is increasing value of these designs as an expression of a ‘real’ design offer. The ‘concept car’ is less and less a fantasy, but something tangibly near possible, that represents a more authentic approach aligning more to today’s car brand-to-customer relationship and the need to deliver on promises.

The Mercedes EQXX was been billed as a ‘prototype’ rather than just a concept car, and is being used to demonstrate Mercedes’ battery R&D efforts. Image © Mercedes

There is a marked opportunity for automotive OEMs to partner with events that align to their brand, heritage, and customer — not to showcase an existing design, but to develop special ‘prototype’ vehicles that test new design functions and demonstrate how design can deliver on more extreme use cases (and so evidence to the customer that the brand is engaged in things they value).

The 2025 edition of Le Tour will be departing from Lille - with Pog defending his yellow jersey - but imagine a start-line with teams using special event-jacking concept designs. This would be an opportunity to explore new typologies (what is the future of the EV wagon/estate?), demonstrate more European lifestyle centric ‘3rd Place’ designs, or showcase HMI designs that aligns to extreme performance use cases.

This new form of concept car would bring design closer to its audience, cut-through more in the media, and enable brands to dip their toe in the water of new directions without fully committing to production. With the classic role of the concept car as auto-show centre-piece fading, so the event-jacking concept car might take to the stage.