Celebrating Automotive Design — Past, Present and Future

Most car shows celebrate automotive history. The International Center for Creativity’s Most car shows celebrate automotive history. The International Center for Creativity’s Caffeine + Gasoline Car Show points to where automotive design is headed.

Hosted by the International Center for Creativity (ICC), where Cedarville University’s industrial and innovative design program is based, Caffeine + Gasoline will bring car enthusiasts, students and professional designers together around a shared interest in automobiles, transportation design and the future of personal mobility.

The free event will be held Thursday, Sept. 3 from 4-8 p.m. in conjunction with the Der Dutchman Cruise-In in Plain City, Ohio. Caffeine + Gasoline will showcase a range of vehicles while giving attendees an opportunity to connect with people interested in automotive design and innovation.

For Cedarville’s industrial and innovative design students, the event connects automotive history with the future of transportation. The industrial and innovative design program introduces students to the principles and history of automotive design while preparing them to contribute to an increasingly competitive and evolving global transportation industry.

“In design, the automobile is the intersection of everything we teach,” said Jim Stevenson, president, co-founder and supporting instructor at the ICC. “It combines product design, architectural design and interior design in an object that has to eventually move. It’s a lot of disciplines crammed into one object.”

 

Automotive design reaches far beyond a vehicle’s appearance. Designers must consider transportation, manufacturing, technology, ergonomics, sustainability, safety and changing expectations for personal mobility. Those factors make transportation design an interdisciplinary field with implications for communities and consumers around the world.

“Cars are one of the single most important inventions,” said Stevenson. “It changed the way we work, the way we design homes, the way we plan cities. It’s one of the most impactful inventions, and we want our designers to be aware of its importance and to have respect for personal mobility.”

Cedarville’s industrial and innovative design offers transportation-focused courses that allow students to learn from designers with professional automotive experience. Among those instructors is Boris Fabris, a freelance automotive designer from Turin, Italy, whose experience includes work with Ferrari and other premium automotive brands 

Graduates of the program have also contributed to the automotive industry, including work on vehicle interiors at Honda and interior concepts for Ford Motor Co. Their experiences demonstrate how skills developed in the classroom can translate into careers with globally recognized automotive companies. 

But before students can shape the future of mobility, Stevenson believes they need an appreciation for the vehicles, designers and ideas that shaped its past. Caffeine + Gasoline provides a place for that appreciation to grow as students, professionals and enthusiasts connect through automotive culture.

Cedarville University, an evangelical Christian institution in southwest Ohio, offers undergraduate and graduate residential and online programs across arts, sciences and professional fields. With 7,265 students, it is among Ohio's largest private universities and is ranked among the nation’s top five evangelical universities in the Wall Street Journal’s 2026 Best Colleges in the U.S. Cedarville is also known for its vibrant Christian community, challenging academics and high graduation and retention rates. Learn more at cedarville.edu.