Have just come accross this thread, thought i would say a few things regarding cost and design, (seems reasonable considering the thread title!!)

I am nowhere near as experienced in design judging as others here (as i have only attended one comp. and this was my final year) but from what i gathered it was in the most part reasonable. Myself and what i like to call "rear end guru" were judged for suspension design, it seemed that a lot of questions were asked - yet not too unreasonable, and that they were also competently answered (usually by Clausen). Other than suspension though, the chassis leader seemed fairly happy with how things went and the Drivetrain leader was a little suprised at some of the left field questions like "wheres the flow calcs for the air filter?" This seems a bit strange to me!

Other than that i think the design judging was fine - but i might be a bit biased considering the results!

On the other hand i would like to pass comment on the cost report. I was generally unhappy with this event. It seems to me that a large amount of experience in the event is the only way to win. We costed our vehicle as close to the exact price as we thought possible (Well Pete did anyway!), and for being honest we got absolutely slaughtered.
From what i gathered (I was not part of the cost judging) the judges had already made a decision on our position before they even walked into the tent. They simply asked whether we could explain why our car cost twice as much as nearly every one else's in the field. This seemed a bit odd considering the professional/expensive look of most of the cars in the field. How could our car cost twice as much as anyone elses? Sure we had a lot of NC machined parts and custom made parts, but we still couldn't see that larger gap in cost.

At this point i would like to make clear that i'm not whinging about how we placed, nor am i whinging at how the judges did their job. I am however dumbfounded by how other teams are able to cost parts so low!

Our car was costed low because it was based on the production of 1000 units, some teams overlook this and price it for one-offs. We also lowered our cost because we use cheap materials and simpler design. I made last year's cost report and I can say it is accurate to my knowledge.