13 Crowdsourced Rides That Drive The Future

With the general sway of automakers over the last half century leaning more towards impossible-to-repair and ridiculously costly consumer vehicles, we're overjoyed to see a general trend back towards literally letting in the world on designing their latest rides. Check out these 13 examples of the future of cost efficient, design forward, and just plain awesome crowd-sourced cars.

Citroen C1

Finally, the unruly internet has found its first intellectual (looking) haven with the automaker Citroen. Back in 2012, the UK based team asked Facebook to crowd-source a unique design and feature-filled city cruiser that continues to be a popular model with consumers. With features like a 7 inch drive interface and a distinctive and urbanite-inspired paint job, this roughly $16,000 car seemingly came out of the noggins of a bunch of inspired frameless hipster spectacled blokes. Go Facebook?

DARPA XC2V FLYPMode

Also known as the Experimental Crowd-derived Combat Support Vehicle, thousands of sci-fi war movie franchise geeks rejoiced at the opportunity to crowd-design this military vehicle destined for service sometime in the future. And, apparently their work found its way to the hyper descriptive 30-plus names to moniker such an imposing looking futuristic APC. What's APC mean? I dunno, but Local Motors and Facebook threw together its concept vehicle and handily won the design-the-next-Humvee competition in a mere 14 days time.

Factory 5 Subaru WRX818

Crowdsourcing proved to be the perfect cousin to the DIY community in 2014, as it produced this build kit for anyone thirsting for a sports car revamp for around $10,000 and a bit of handiwork. Using the internals of a Subaru WRX, a 2011 design competition culminated with this design voted best from an array of crowd designs submitted by the internet. Provided the user has a Subaru WRX or Impreza, the kit is made to be relatively easy to put together with common tools and makes an otherwise decent sports car look sexy and fast.

Fiat Mio

2011's Sao Paulo Auto show caught the world's attention, and input, as the Italian automaker introduced the word's first crowd-sourced car. More than 17,000 participants all over the globe submitted over 11,000 ideas for the design of the vehicle line from Fiat's website. Conceived as "the car of the future," the open source Mio implemented urban drive technology and pollution reduction components to provide the internet with the car it really always wanted.

Le Mans P1

The 24 hour Le Mans will pit drivers against a lengthy and difficult challenge meant to send car and driver to the edge of capability. Nicolas Perrinn, a well-known designer in his own right, decided that great minds think alike: so why not gather as many as possible together. No need to be a designer yourself though. A great idea is worth a greater amount to the European team, who started a website through which users track progress and send ideas and feedback to the team.

Nissan Project 370z

Nissan's urgency to get in on the crowd-source game continues to grow as its Innovation team utilized Facebook to connect with fans in 2012. Already a powerhouse in its own right, Nissan pointed to fans to see what could be changed on its 370z track car. Through comments, likes, and wall posts on its "Performance Facebook" page, Nissan built its latest model entirely from its thousands of community participants. The end result? A 500 horsepower beast with turbo kit and performance tuning.

Nissan Project Titan

2014 brought with it Nissan's latest foray into the crowd-source game as its growing popular Facebook page hit a milestone number of fans. Capitalizing on its previous success with crowdsourcing its 370z in 2011, Project Titan allowed fans to vote in 10 areas of customization of the all-terrain vehicle including suspension, tires, truck beds, wheels, and more. Why? Well, after the car was completed, a couple of Wounded Warrior project alumni took it to the Alaskan wilderness and put it to the test. The photos obviously proved its success.

Porsche 911 5M

The famous German sports car finally allowed its 5 million Facebook to taste its design process in 2013. To honor the iconic car on its 50th birthday, Porsche handed over the metaphorical keys to five million plus to many design aspects including color, wheels, and spoilers. 54,000 fans ended up voting, culminating a large amount of 5 number with this appropriately decaled car. Porsche 511 anyone?

Rally Fighter

In the Guinness Book of World Records as the first production model car entirely crowd-sourced by the great and mighty internet, this $100,000 rugged beauty was conceived in 2008. “If Henry Ford had Twitter and Internet access, he surely would have made his automobiles in a very different way,” explained John B. Rogers, the president co-founder of Local Motors. From start to finish, Henry Ford certainly would have enjoyed the added benefit of crowd-source design, as the project was completed 18 months from scratch, a testament to the power of people. Many people.

Street Fighter SF01

Local Motors stunned the world again with its, and the world's, first crowd-sourced sports car in 2014. This time the particularly open air design was created by Greg Thompson, who beat out 200 other competitors to provide a lightweight body and tubular-frame chassis to the modular engine space. Slap a v6 or v8 in this beauty, and you will be flying down the highway with wind through your hair, all while Greg Thompson counts some royalties.

Streetscooter Compact

"You are looking for a speedy city car that at the same time protects our environment?" Who doesn't love the sound of the German auto collaborator's concept car, Streetscooter. Well, Streetscooter and 50 other collaborating companies continue to hone this efficient model to perfection. For a brilliantly affordable $6,000, you will attain an entirely electric car with a top speed of 74mph and range of around 80 miles.

Strati 3D

3D printing and crowdsourcing are kind of seamless these days. Anyone from anywhere can make pretty much anything without saying so much as a word to each other. Here, Local Motors did a bit of very loud talking to collab design this entirely 3D printed car as part of their very active 2014. Over 200 design entries were narrowed to this "Strati" model, and the concept model was produced over the summer as one of its three plus vehicles it had produced from crowdsourcing in under a year.

Streetscooter Loader

Diesel, trucks, and fuel consumption don't really mix well. So where would you be when the newest truck with a 4.3 cubic meter load capacity and high payload capacity could all come in a nice, let's say, electronic powered package? This crowd-sourced vehicle was developed with similar tech to the consumer oriented Streetscooter automobile through the collaboration of 50 automaker companies, and as such no corners were cut with a concept aimed to be very cost effective and easy to repair.