I buy my car from you because I trust that you make cars well.

A lovely Contagious post about the Brazilian Fiat Mio, a concept car built on the suggestions of regular folk, quickly reminded me of the Simpsons episode 'Oh brother, where art thou?'Homer discovers his long lost brother is an automobile tycoon. He then goes onto to entrust Homer with the responsibility of designing a car, eventually seeing him bring the company down.



Now, whilst I would buy a car on the assumption that highly educated engineers know better than I do, I think it is entirely that which makes this project appealing. For the first time, ordinary consumers have the opportunity to pitch to a highly specialised industry. The website has received over 10,000 suggestions from across the globe, because, rather than coming up with an idea for the new flavour for Vitamin Water, your idea could make it in front of top designers and engineers, potentially even into the car itself.



The Fiat Mio is still just a concept, and isn't yet widely available. However, in a world where crowd-sourcing as a strategy covers all manner of sins, and many degrees of weak engagement, Fiat have put their money where their mouth is by actually creating the Homer Simpson car.