Toyota 6th Dream Car Art Contest kicks off in Saudi Arabia

The Saudi winners of the last year’s 5^th Dream Car Art Contest, Mashael Haroon Kareem and Maymoona Abdulrahman Hajjar from First Secondary School in Jeddah and the 17^th Intermediate School in Riyadh, experienced a captivating moment when the two fifteen year old girls were specially honored and presented with their official finalists certificate in the World Contest signed by Akio Toyoda in front of their friends and schoolmates.

From an initial 2000 entries in Saudi Arabia, 15 winning artworks were sent to Japan and out of these two entries by Mashael Haroon Kareem and Maymoona Abdulrahman Hajjar were selected for the final stage of the World Contest.           

“We wanted to make their participation in the Dream Car Art Contest especially memorable, so we decided to honor them again. This was the perfect occasion to announce the launch of 6^th Toyota Dream Car Art Contest. We congratulate the two finalists of the World Contest on their great artwork and take this opportunity to express our gratitude towards the schools, which are our most important partners during the competition. It is part of our commitment to encourage children express their joy and artistic talents, so we are very pleased that  over 70 schools have actively participated in the Dream Car Art Contest last year and we are expecting this number to increase this year,” said Faisal Mirza, GM – Toyota Marketing Communications.

The Kingdom is one of the 64 countries participating in the sixth edition of the competition and winners of the Saudi National Contest, which is organized by Abdul Latif Jameel Co. Ltd (ALJ), sole agent of Toyota in Saudi Arabia, will be entitled to be entered in the World Contest. If selected they will have the chance to win a trip to Japan accompanied by their parents.

“A special feature of this year’s competition is our Dream Car Booth,” Mirza continued. The booth is now touring the Kingdom’s major cities Jeddah, Riyadh and Khobar and we are receiving great feedback from families and children. The next chance to visit our booth is in Riyadh on 21^st/ 22^nd December before concluding in Jeddah on 28/ 29^th December.”

“The contest was announced during the Saudi International Motorshow in Jeddah through a special booth which turned out to be a huge success. It was a very inspiring environment for the children and we might have spotted few future car designers,” Mr. Mirza added.   

Three age groups of the Kingdom’s younger generation have the chance to express their artistic talent and design their own vehicle of the future in the Toyota Dream Car Art Contest. The three categories are: children under 10 years; 10-12 years; and 13-15 years. There are prizes for 1^st- 5^th place in each age group, making a total of 15 prizes

To enter, children are required to draw their dream car of the future on A3-size paper and submit the drawing to the nearest Toyota showroom in the Kingdom. The contest is now open and the last date for receiving entries is January 31, 2012.

Held since 2004, the territorial scope of this year’s contest has been expanded from Asia to include North, Central, and South America; Europe; Africa; Oceania and the Middle East.  Winning entries in each National Contest will be submitted to the World Contest to be held in Japan in May 2012, with bronze, silver, and gold prize winners, as well as other works of distinction, being selected.