The Wiesmann GT has been nominated by the Rat der Formgebung (Germany's Industrial Design Council) for the highest German design award. The prize is given by the German Ministry of Economy and Technology on behalf of the Federal Republic. The Rat für Formgebung runs the voting and the prize-giving ceremony.
If the GT wins, it'll be the stonking sports car's second award: it recently won the “red dot design award” for good industrial design. On 28 September, an international jury will meet in Frankfurt to select the winners in the individual categories.
Technical director Martin Wiesmann, who said: ”We feel very honoured having been nominated for this great design prize. Obviously experts discovered the attractiveness of our car and recommended the Rat für Formgebung its participation on this competition.”
Wiesmann said that the nomination was an endorsement of the company's philosophy of building sports cars -- to synthesise classic design and state-of-the-art technology to create pure sports cars. The results are the Wiesmann Roadster and GT.
Wiesmann said: "My opinion is that the basic design must be created by one person because too many cooks spoil the broth. With my brother Friedhelm (managing director of the company), I share the opinion that our car must have a classic design because the automobile history shows that these shapes last long without becoming out of date.
"Long-lasting model cycles are compulsory for our small manufacturing company out of economical reasons. We simply do not have the money to develop new shapes every four or five years and throw the old ones away. Instead we invest all our effort in the technological improvement of our cars for the sake of our customers."