Turns out a lot of people have a lot of ideas on what future Lexus cars should look like. Their first ever design contest received more than 2,100 initial registrations leading to 1,243 projects being submitted. Only 10 projects will make it to the finals, and only two of them will be awarded by Lexus.

The award is the chance to work with world-famous designers who will oversee the creation of the winning projects. Sam Hecht and architect Junya Ishigam will complement Lexus’ financial support for the winners to turn their design study into a prototype.

The prototypes, along with other eight finalists’ work, will be put on public show in the Lexus exhibition halls. The winning projects will be chosen by a jury of six experts, and the results will be announced by the end of February.

The award, which this year takes “motion” as its theme, has achieved an excellent global reach, with 44 per cent of registrations from Europe, 32 per cent from Asia and 20 per cent from the USA.