A group of students will get the chance to work alongside designers and engineers from Skoda Motorsport to build a competition-inspired version of the Czech company’s Kamiq SUV.
The final life-size version of the one-off design study, which is said to have “a distinct racing character”, will closely resemble sketches that have been penned by the 25-strong class at the firm’s vocational school in Mladá Boleslav.
This year Skoda Motorsport – the team that runs the brand’s Fabia Rally2 Evo cars in the World Rally Championship – is celebrating its 120th anniversary. To mark the milestone, it has agreed to lend a hand.
Support will also be given by staff currently working in the company’s automotive division, including those from the Technical Development, Design and Production departments. Once completed, it will be the eighth Skoda Student Car to be taken from a page and turned into a reality.
This year’s course had been delayed by the COVID-19 health pandemic, but once restrictions had eased and the course could return, students wasted no time in imagining how their dream Kamiq should look.
This is the first time the Kamiq has been used as part of the Student Car project, although it does follow in the wheeltracks of the mid-size Karoq and larger Kodiaq SUVs. These were turned into a ‘Sunroq’ cabriolet and a go-anywhere ‘Mountiaq’ pick-up in 2018 and 2019 respectively.
Oliver Stefani, Head of Škoda Design, said: “The rally version of the Kamiq posed unique challenges for the apprentices’ creativity. They put a lot of great ideas on paper and into the project.
“To have this Kamiq Dakar is a very cool idea I have to say. Skoda is into rally racing, so to do this on the Kamiq and make it even a little bit more extreme so it can go to Dakar, it is a nice, fun project for Skoda but also for our young design talents because it is really challenging their creativity,” added Stefani.
More images of the Kamiq SUV will be released closer to the concept’s unveiling, which is expected to take place at the annual Wörthersee motoring festival in Austria next May. As always, however, there are no plans to put the car into production.
