Hot Rod of the Future

Hot rods are a genre of modified cars based around high-performance and extreme speeds. Typically based on classic American cars, hot rods feature bright paint, exposed engines, and lots of chrome parts.

I've always loved hot rods, so for this sketch I wanted to imagine what a hot rod of the future based on a present day car might look like.

I have limited experience working with color, rendering, and drawing digitally, so this project was quite a learning experience.

The design for this car is based on an assignment I did for IND271. I wanted to explore the form further so I used that design as a base, then played with proportions and added features.

I aimed to capture the hard edged, angular styling that is becoming increasingly popular in new cars (eg. Hyundai IONIQ 5, Ferrari 12 cilindri, and Tesla Cybertruck), as I believe it is the next phase of automotive design. However, I wanted to contrast this with classic hot-rod elements such as an exposed engine, ram air intakes, and side exit exhausts.