2025 IED Project Icaro
By Lorenzo Bianchi August 30, 2025
Compact proportions and transparent materials emphasize lightness.
Aircraft-inspired flaps respond directly to driver inputs.
Developed by IED Torino students with Dallara, highlighting instinctive driving.
A Concept Born from Collaboration
The 2025 IED Project Icaro landed this week as one of six student concepts built under IED Torino’s collaboration with Dallara. Among them, Icaro feels the most direct, the most personal. It’s not about showing off new forms or futuristic silhouettes. Instead, it focuses on how a car moves with its driver, almost as if body and machine are meant to act as one.
Compact, Clear, and Honest in Design
Look closer and you see the flaps. Inspired by ultralight aircraft, these mechanical appendages react to driver inputs. It’s a detail that sounds abstract at first but makes sense in the pictures — surfaces designed to physically echo control, to show movement instead of disguising it. The cues don’t stop there. Design references pull from the Concorde, fighter jets, even the architectural sweep of Santiago Calatrava. Dragonfly wings are mentioned, too. It all circles back to the theme of flight, precision, and balance.
A Poetic Counterpoint Among Peers
Within the group of projects, Icaro comes across as the most poetic. While another concept, Vortex, flaunts exposed rotary engines, and Supernova imagines an 800-horsepower hypercar, Icaro avoids spectacle. Its drama lies in restraint. Compact shape, essential materials, a sense of clarity. It wants to remind people that driving isn’t always about numbers, but about feel.
For Dallara, that message hits home. This is a brand that has built its reputation on lightweight structures and sharp responses. Seeing students channel that into a design that prioritizes instinctive connection rather than raw output feels fitting.