Stellantis Just Opened Its Design Contest… Even Kids Can Enter

Stellantis is bringing back its Drive for Design contest for 2026, and this time, they’ve opened it up quite a bit.

Last year, it was all about imagining a future Chrysler. Now it’s wider. Students are asked to come up with future SRT models across Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, and Ram. So you can go in pretty much any direction, as long as it fits that fast, aggressive SRT style.

The big change is who can enter. It’s still open to high school students in grades 10 to 12, but now they’ve added a Junior category too. That one’s split into three groups: kindergarten to third grade, fourth to sixth, and seventh to ninth. So yeah, even really young kids can jump in now.

Everyone follows the same basic brief. Design something performance-focused that looks fast even when it’s just parked.

There are a few things on the line. Each Junior group gets a winner. The main competition has one overall winner plus two finalists. The top prize is actually pretty solid. You get a summer internship with the Ram and SRT design studio, plus an iPad Pro and Apple Pencil.

Submission rules are simple. Send your design as a JPG or PDF, max size 11 by 17 inches. And one thing they’re strict about this year: no AI-generated images. If you enter, it has to be your own work.

It also comes at a time when Stellantis is putting more focus back on combustion engines and the Hemi V8, so asking people to imagine future SRT cars kind of lines up with that shift.

Overall, it feels more open and less rigid than before. More room to experiment, and some of the best ideas might come from the youngest group.