BMW Paralympic Racing Wheelchair 2016

Designers: Design Team, BMW Group Designworks, Newbury Park California, USA
Manufacturer: BMW of North American LLC, Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey, USA

Designworks collaborated with BMW NA and the U.S. Paralympic Track and Field team to develop a racing wheelchair customized for world-class athletes. Our team immersed themselves in the challenges of the athletes to understand criteria for winning. The outcome: A wheelchair using aerodynamics, lightweight materials and extensive ergonomic analysis to optimize athlete performance.

Previous chairs used aluminum tubing with a poorly-fitting cockpit, requiring athletes to shim themselves into the chairs with foam blocks and straps. Taking insights from BMW’s history in motorsport, we applied custom body mold processes to optimize the fit to each athlete. This same ergonomic thinking was applied to all wheelchair touchpoints (steering mechanisms, technical gloves). We used advanced 3D scanning and 3D printing techniques to create personalized components for each athlete. Additionally, the team drew from automotive racing and integrated material knowledge to select carbon fiber processes for the chassis. This balanced the need for a lightweight and stiff chassis with improved aerodynamic performance.

In the Rio Paralympics athletes took home seven medals (four gold) and set four Paralympic records.