Are concept car designs protected?

[TrevS]

Following on from my previous thread about making your own car and where to start I've started playing around with some ideas and having a look around the internet for some inspiration.

I’ve seen a lot of amazing concept cars out there that have been designed by individuals not associated to any manufacturers and wondered if you design a concept car can you protect the design or could someone choose to build it? So could someone take a concept design they find and change a certain percentage of the design in order for it to be unique and therefore not liable to be sued by the original designer?

As an example there are 4 Lamborghini concepts below. What is stopping someone taking any of these designs changing them slightly to make it a little more real world and building them? Alternatively if you were to take 25% of the 4 cars and blended them together to make a new concept could I call it my own?

It seems like a bit of a grey area as on one hand you’re using someone’s idea/design but manufacturers in the kit car industry have been copying designs for years with replicas (GT40, Ferrari’s, Porsche).

Any thoughts?

 

[René]

don't know, but always loved this example for looking so muscular.

 

[Olivier S]

You could probably contact the designer, and propose him to have an agreement about his design, telling him you want to build a unique car using some of his design...

if I were the guy, I'd be so happy that i would say "yes, it will just cost you a run in the car..."

Olvier.

 

[Carl Soares]

I remember one of those Lambo's really well. I was in the same school in Milano with the guys who did this one, the 2009 Lamborghini Cnossus Concept. The student on the left won the competition for an internship with lambo after the projects were finished. In the center there is the design directors of Audi and Lamborghini.

I thought I should include a photo of my Lambo too! It's the 2009 Lamborghini Avispado Concept.

 

[René]

wow, thats also a nice one Carl.

 

[Jeff Young]

In the US, the answer is: yes. You have a copyright in the design from the moment it is first reduced to a drawing or an actual mock up. You should then file for a copyright with the Copyright office.

YMMV in other countries.

 

[Jim Craik]

Carl,

Very very nice!

Your design has that great wide hip look that I love. I seems to carry many of the styling cues from the 1969 Le Mans cars.

That's a very beautiful design, thanks for sharing!

 

[Randy V]

Carl, I like yours far better!!!

If Lambo won't build it, you should talk with Fran Hall from RCR here on the forums.. Mabe he might be interested!

 

[TrevS]

Hi all

OK to give a bit more of a background as to why I started this thread. I've started looking at building my own car using a donor platform and I found a really nice concept design and thought I'd contact the designer to see if I could acquire the designs. The reason I wanted to purchase the design rather than just get the OK from the designer to build a version of the car was to stop anyone else in future building the same car, hence the reason I thought I'd check about copyright issues on here.

Anyway long story short I was offered ownership of the designs but realistically the whole car needed redesigning as the wheelbase was way out and it just wasn't going to work with my donor car.

So I decided to invest some money in a ground up fresh design and have been working with a talented young designer in the Netherlands who has produced some initial concept designs. I am now at the point of finishing off the first batch of plan drawings and then am trying to find a car designer to take the design brief and the initial sketches and work it into a finished design.

I've actually been talking to a few graduates from IED in Turin, Carl are you a graduate/student from there by any chance?

Trev

 

[Carl Soares]

Many thanks guys for the positive feedback on my Lamborghini. It was my first clay model by hand. Looking back some years later there is so much I would change, but that's how design goes right?!
Long story short, I learned a lot and can see that there are tons of problems with the car. The most amusing which I didn't think of as a student is that the occupants heads would have almost no space inside in the Y axis, however the windows have space to roll down inside the doors

I am almost 100% sure that Lamborghini own all of our designs made during the course of work. I seem to remember signing a huge contract when I began the Graduate program.
In order for someone to use a design like mine again, it would have to be changed by more than 30%. This would be judged by volume, graphic language and differences in the most significant design features. IMHO Correcting the problems by updating the design and applying it to a proper package would probably pass for almost 30% in difference.

I Didn't attend IED Torino, I live here for work reasons. There is a school in Milan, Scuola Politecnica di Milano SPD, who offered scholarships and sponsored projects when I was looking to further my education. It turned out to be the right choice at the right time, finding out that Lamborghini was going to sponsor the Master was perhaps the coolest surprise in world!

Here is a link if you would like to see some of the project the students have made.
2010 | Transportation-Car Design | Gallery | Scuola Politecnica di Design SPD in Milan, Italy

Carl