It’s not every day you see your school homework adorning a real-life rally car, but this dream came true for 16-year-old Alice Goodliffe from Ysgol Gyfun Gymraeg Plasmawr, a comprehensive secondary school in Plasmawr, close to Cardiff in south Wales.
During the spring’s lockdown, Alice entered a special competition to ‘Design a Rally Car Livery’ and her winning submission, which pays tribute to the selfless and essential work undertaken by key workers during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, has now been turned into a wrap for one of Toyota’s latest GR Yaris models.
The original plan was to unveil Alice’s stunning work of art during Wales Rally GB, but this was thwarted when Britain’s round of the WRC was cancelled due to the global pandemic. Ensuring Alice was still rewarded in style, the liveried GR Yaris instead was presented to her, and her admiring fellow students, outside her school.
“It looks absolutely fantastic – now all I want are the keys!” joked the delighted teenager. “I’m a big rally fan and was absolutely gutted when this year’s Wales Rally GB was cancelled.
“I wanted my design, which was done in the middle of the pandemic, to reflect all the hard work that our key workers have done and to show appreciation for them,” she said.
The highly topical design is clearly a big success as spontaneous applause erupted when the wraps came off the car for Alice’s big moment at Ysgol Gyfun Gymraeg Plasmawr.
Alice explained her design: “Everyone is wearing masks, so I started off with the mask on the front of the car with the straps looped around the wing mirrors. On the doors we have the key workers who’ve been so important: a nurse, a teacher, a construction worker, a shop keeper and a police person. Then, not forgetting that we are Welsh and this livery was for Wales Rally GB, we have a few of our national daffodil flowers on the sides at the back. Finally, there’s the rainbow on the top as a sign of hope during these tough times.”
The dynamic GR Yaris is the showroom version of the turbocharged, four-wheel-drive rally car which took multiple title winning French star Sébastien Ogier and his Welsh team-mate Elfyn Evans to first and second places in this year’s FIA World Rally Championship (WRC).”
“We are absolutely delighted for Alice and delighted for us as a school,” enthused Headteacher, John Hayes. “We are very, very proud of her success and it’s fantastic that her design is so topical and so eye-catching. It really stands out and will make an impression wherever it goes, reminding everyone of the hard times we’ve had.
“Winning a national competition will look great on Alice’s CV and she’ll be able to dine out on her success for a long time. It’s been a great case study, too, for our creative arts department. All the students have loved seeing the car and now recognise what’s possible when a paper design is bought to life on a real car. It’s been inspirational for all of them.”
Organised by Wales Rally GB in partnership with Toyota (GB), the inspirational ‘Design a Rally Car Livery’ competition was open to all pre-university students throughout the UK.
