Car design for kids - Telegraph He's motivated by what's on the family drive: "My mum has a new VW Beetle and an old VW camper. The Beetle is very bulky but I like the look of it. It's not too bad in the back - it's kind of surprising. My dad has a Toyota Yaris that's really not very nice, but it's just a cheap car to run around in. I'm very keen to get driving. Vehicle Design is one of the more unusual choices in the V & A's Create! season of workshops for people aged 13 to 19. The programme aims to ignite the spark of interest and keep it burning with a view towards a possible career. "All the workshops are linked to our collections or temporary exhibitions," says David Judd, creative projects manager of the V & A's learning and interpretation division. You meet practising artists and designers, which stimulates your thinking. You find out how to create something yourself. And then you get to explain your thinking to people you don't know, which can really increase your confidence. A real car designer from the Royal College of Art, Ewan Gallimore, was on hand to take the boys around the V & A's British Design 1948-2012 exhibition, where he shepherded them from an original Mini to a Jaguar E-type and then on to a small-wheeled Moulton bicycle, a model of Concorde and a Seventies Tripper sailing dinghy to demonstrate what breadth there is to a simple term such as "vehicle." The glittering E-type was the big draw for Seb: "An E-type's my mum's favourite car, so we've seen quite a few." Charlie, 13, had eyes like hubcaps as he gazed at it. I've never been so close before to one and I really like it, it's quite stylish. It looks like it's just come out of the factory. Then he stunned me with: "I like old-fashioned cars and the new retro cars look more evolved." That's the sort of well-informed comment real car designers come out with. Once back in the digital studio, Ewan gave a rapid run-down of the designer's approach, and everyone looked a little mystified until he flashed up a real project he'd been working on, a motorbike-influenced small Audi sports car. Ewan wanted them to start sketching one of three types of "vehicle" from a specific scenario. A left-field city car ideal for a congestion-choked metropolis, a machine to get people through the waterlogged super-Venice of a globally warmed future, or a spacecraft designed for interplanetary people-moving. There were pots of Plasticine for squidging into rough models of their concepts. The concentration was palpable. When they trudged off with their packed lunches for a break, Ewan gave his verdict on progress. They possibly don't think there's a huge amount of value in what they're doing, but really this sort of freer expression is important, because the automotive industry is heading somewhere new with powertrain technology. You need to be thinking differently. By the time they filed back in (early, it should be said), course leaders Christine Leung and Jing Lu had barely had time to digitise all their sketches. That provided a few moments for Max, 13, to show me his intriguing, tower-like structure for an underwater vehicle with a section above the water line, powered by hydrofoil. I am a car enthusiast. I'd like a Bugatti Veyron but a Mini would make a good first car for me," he says. My mum showed me the car she was going to get. I didn't particularly like it but she got it anyway. It's a Citroën C4, and you've got to fold the seats down to get in the back. After years experimenting with Lego and Meccano, Max saw a future for himself in "designing objects - designing in general and using computers." So the afternoon session really paid dividends, as the leaders gave them a whirlwind tutorial in Google Sketchup, basic but user-friendly CAD (computer-aided design) software. Some of them had used it before, newcomers had to get to grips with it quickly, but everyone managed to see their sketches come to life as they chipped away at unwanted sections on-screen to get the 3D shapes they'd imagined. Ryan, 14, had used the programme before. I've chosen the underwater scenario. It can float on water and go underwater. I like drawing things I see in real life - I want to be a designer anyway. They do lots of art stuff at school, pointillism and cubism, and you can build up your GCSE portfolio with stuff about your own interests. I like comparing old cars with new ones, and seeing the different types of aerodynamics and how they're made. I actually like fast cars, the kind you'd see in films like Fast & Furious, but I like them to be comfortable as well. Perhaps all boys like big, impressive cars. But this group, poring over their vehicle designs, had some great arguments to back up their preferences. "I like proper cars, like a Bentley - I'll try and get one somehow," says Ben. At home we have a couple of Saabs but, hopefully, we're going to get something bigger. The smaller the car, the feebler the look, and colours matter too: greys and things are a bit too 'down" on a small car." Meanwhile, 13-year-old Rowan (his design was for an inner-city flying car that could stop off at platforms mounted on the side of skyscrapers - this boy will go far) said he loved Rolls-Royces. There's no sense of urgency to them, they kind of say 'I'll go when I want. I'd like an oak dashboard, or walnut, and leather interiors. I think cheaper car interiors could do with improvement, better-quality plastic. I think quite a lot about what car I'd like to get. The last car I saw that I thought was, like, wow, was a Ford GT. We do sometimes talk about cars at school. More about girls. Lamborghini fanatic Sammy, 14, also had cogent words about rear passenger compartments: "Designers need to extend that space a bit more, and get more airflow into it because it can be too stuffy." Meanwhile, Philip, 11, has detected a subtle shift in how we view exotic motors. I like Porsches and Lamborghinis. Ferraris were cooler when all the others weren't as cool as they are now. They left clutching printouts of the vehicles they'd designed from scratch and Judd's V & A certificates of attendance, potentially useful one day for portfolios or interviews when applying for full-time design courses. The boys seemed genuinely pleased with what they'd done. This is really, really good. You do get a lot in a day," says Sam. And what about the professional car designer? "I expected them to be quite conservative, to just think about what they see on the road because, let's face it, the dream is to jump into a car you've designed yourself," says Ewan. But they didn't worry over the things that experience has made me think about. They approach it in a way that's a bit bonkers, and I find that inspiring. More details at the V & A Museum website.