Indian carmaker Mahindra & Mahindra and the Istituto Europeo di Design (IED) of Turin have been working together on a project for the development of a series of concepts for crossovers that blend elements from minivans and SUVs.

Students from the Course in Transportation Design created the concepts with all proposals being presented to a special committee that chose three studies that best satisfied the initial brief for further development.

The three finalists were the SHROOM by Aldo Maria Sica, the CORE by Denald Jasini and Michal Sebastian Ptak, and the MAHINDRA BEE by Alex Vasil Imnadze, who you may remember from a number of conceptual models featured in our digital pages, including the Jaguar E-Type, the BMW M3i, and the Lamborghini supercar.

With the help of Cecomp, all three projects were produced in a 1:4 scale and are now on display at the IED Turin headquarters. Check them out for yourself in the gallery after the jump.

As for Mahindra, it’s worth noting that the company has plans to build a new research and development center in the UK. “We need to expand our R & D network beyond India now, given the size of the company and the kind of products we are working on,” Mahindra’s president Pawan Goenka told the Financial Times on Monday.

PHOTO GALLERY

MAHINDRA BEE1_MAHINDRA BEE2_.jpgMAHINDRA BEE3_.jpgMAHINDRA CORE1_.jpgMAHINDRA CORE2_.jpgMAHINDRA CORE3_.jpgMAHINDRA SHROOM1_.jpgMAHINDRA SHROOM2_.jpgMAHINDRA SHROOM3_.jpg