LIZZIE'S GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GRANDCHILDREN; The Model T inspires 21st-century designs.

Byline: Kevin A. Wilson

As part of celebrating the Model T's 100th anniversary coming up on Sept. 27, Ford sponsored a competition among junior design students at Detroit's College for Creative Studies (CCS) to devise a 21st-century vehicle that embodies the essential elements of the original: affordable, reliable transportation for the masses. But they were also tasked with making designs for an expanding global market that demands modern features and incorporates concern for environmental issues.

The winner among the 11 students who developed their proposals over a 16-week semester, judged by Ford designers Peter Horbury and Pat Schiavone, was Dong Tran of Cicero, New York. His clay model will be displayed in Dearborn, Michigan, at Ford World Headquarters, alongside an original Model T. All of the student works will be on exhibit at the Henry Ford Museum, also in Dearborn, this summer. Here are descriptions of a few of their designs and how they could carry the Model T legacy into Ford's future.

Dong Tran

Tran's well-crafted model shows a popular notion among all of the students: a basic mechanical platform (the white portion) can carry various bodies on top of it, just as innumerable body styles appeared atop the original Model T's frame. This hatchback converts to a pickup by folding the rear door down, and the seating is reconfigurable in numerous innovative ways. Also like the original, it anticipates that buyers in rural, undeveloped areas will want a portable power source, but instead of a power takeoff like what Model T owners used to run generators and farm equipment, this car has a removable battery pack that owners could use for other purposes. Tran says it would recharge via solar panels on top and captured energy from brakes and suspension.

Jody Ingle

The Model T made driving easy for people who'd never operated a car before, and expansion of the global auto market presents a similar challenge today. Ingle's packaging includes a small engine under the front seats, something that was common in pre-Model T horseless carriages. A century later, though, people who have never owned a car have operated cell phones, TVs and computers, so Ingle suggests that his "Mode iT'' would have a cabin full of phones, video displays and Internet connectivity. These potential driver distractions, he says, would be offset by expanding today's driver aids such as lane-departure warning and adaptive cruise control into a fully autonomous vehicle that could "relieve owners of the mundane task of driving.'' Ingle's model bears a remote resemblance to the Mercedes-Benz Bionic concept car (the one patterned after the surprisingly aero- dynamic tropical boxfish), an association heightened by his choice of a similar shade of green. Built to the same scale as the others, it is clearly the smallest, and Ingle's design brief cites Smart as one inspiration.