Thirty-two-year-old British car designer Leighanne Earley has won Autocar’s inaugural Automotive Leader of the Future award. The commendation was presented at the Autocar Awards 2008, held last night at the Royal Horticultural Halls, London, and has been conceived to give credit to young and talented Britons working anywhere within the global car industry.

Earley, an interior designer with French car maker Citroën, enrolled on Coventry University’s Transport Design course in 1995, and was this year responsible for the audacious cabin of the Citroën Hypnos show car, itself the recipient of Autocar’s Concept Car of the Year award.

The Hypnos’s cabin is remarkable for its use of colour, its asymmetrical layout and its organic, spiral design. “It’s full of imaginatively sculpted surfaces,” said Autocar editor-in-chief Steve Cropley, “and yet manages to gel perfectly with the Hypnos’s elegant exterior.”

Born in Greenock, Scotland, Earley worked at Lincoln’s design centre in California between her current stint with Citroën and her first, which began shortly after she graduated from Coventry. Before the Hypnos, she contributed to the cabin designs of the equally bold Citroën C-Buggy and C-Cactus concepts.

Earley is the first winner of an award that will only ever be given to fast-rising British stars of the automotive scene. “There are so many young, gifted Britons working in the car industry,” said Cropley. “We hope to bring a few of them some greatly deserved recognition with this award, and in doing so help to cement this country’s reputation as the world’s richest breeding ground for talented car makers.”

Lynda Pickess, Managing Partner of Courland Automotive, said “We are absolutely delighted that Leighanne is to receive this new award, she is proof that the automotive stage is a place for women to shine as well as men.  We look forward to watching her progress over the years that follow”.