How will the Ferrari of 2040 look? Here are 12 amazing visions

The cars in the following gallery aren't mere flights of fancy from students with too much time on their hands. Instead they're the response to a brief set by Ferrari itself. These, ladies and gentlemen, are the twelve finalists for the 2015 Ferrari ‘Top Design School Challenge’.

The premise is simple. Maranello set the world’s top design institutes a challenge: to imagine how a Ferrari would look in the year 2040. And if 25 years sounds a long way off, remember 25 years ago Ferrari was building the F40. Yeah.

After whittling down around 50 entries from the first round down to eight schools, we’re now in the final stretch: three models each from four schools. There's your final twelve.

The schools to have made the finals in Maranello are the Hochschule Pforzheim in Germany, the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, the Hongik University in Seoul, and the ISD-Rubika in Valenciennes.

There are two prizes on offer, the ‘Premio Speciale’ awarded via an online vote cast through Ferrari’s Facebook page, and the overall ‘Gran Premio’ award.

That’s the big prize, decided by a very distinguished jury consisting of Sebastian Vettel, Paolo Pininfarina, Nick Mason, Jay Kay, Flavio Manzoni, Andrea Militello, Rodolfo Gaffino Rossi, Aldo Colonnetti, Franco Cimatti, Nicola Boari and Marc Newson.

Have a click through the final entries above, and then head here to cast your online vote on Ferrari’s FB page. Which do you reckon stands the strongest chance of winning?

Images: Ferrari S.p.A.