Pizza delivery usually depends on the delivery person’s own transport, but that may change in the near future. Domino’s Pizza and crowd-source automaker Local Motors have announced the winner in their "Ultimate Delivery Vehicle" contest, which aims at creating a dedicated, high-tech pizza van. After a six-week competition with over 200 entries. the winner of the initial design phase was Anej Kostrevic of Slovenia, who was awarded the US$10,000 prize first prize for his Domino's Pack delivery vehicle.
The Domino’s Pack is a specialized van based on small urban vehicles like the smart car. It has a high profile and a short wheelbase with sliding side doors, an integrated rearview camera and a fog light. It also has auxiliary side lights to illuminate the surrounding area, which those of us who have delivered pizzas at night in rural areas will appreciate.
The engines that Kostrevic selected for the Domino’s Pack are the Fiat TwinAir two-cylinder and the Ford IL Ecoboost three-cylinder, so the van is designed for fuel economy and low emissions rather than speed or performance.
What the Domino’s Pack is designed for is delivering pizzas and advertising the Domino’s brand with a lighted display covering the entire rear door. Inside, there are large sliding shelves for carrying dozens of pizzas in heater bags, a refrigerated drawer holding nine two-liter soda bottles, compartments for other items and a removable sliding side drawer. Next to the driver there’s a large-screen LCD display mounted on an articulated arm that provides customer location and navigation information.
According to Local Motors, the next phase of the project is the Packaging competition. This is scheduled to begin tomorrow, when the Domino’s Pack concept is crowd-sourced to bring the concept closer to production standard. This will be followed by other competition phases over the next six months to design the interior, surfacing and rendering. Local Motors said that it expects this process to be ten times faster than conventional automotive designing.
Whether Domino’s will actually use this vehicle remains to be seen, but for the moment, it will give many a delivery person sitting their rusted-out Cortina a ray of hope.
The video below provides more details on the Ultimate Delivery Vehicle competition.
Source: Local Motors via NextCars
