At the centre of the Mumbai International Auto Show is a stall that features no known automobile brand or faces familiar within the industry -- only eager students who are eager to explain their work to onlookers. Confident and poised, they answer every question that comes their way.

These are students of the K J Somaiya College of Engineering.
Three years ago, these enterprising kids embarked upon a small college project with a dream of building their own Formula 1 car and today, their creation is set to receive its third official entry into the Formula Students Design Competition in Germany.

The engineering students have christened their formula team Orion Racing. Explains a team member, Rohit Gupta animatedly, "This is our third car. The first, which we called the Barracuda B150 was actually a prototype just to test our abilities, to see whether we really had the potential to achieve this dream. The B150 was actually created using an autorickshaw engine!"

Text and photographs: Rajesh Karkera

Also see: 'We believed in a good idea'

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