Automotive News Canada - October 2020 - v2 - 4

* OCTOBER 2020

At the end of the day, good design is good design.
If we can make the car beautiful and make your
heart skip a beat, that should work regardless.

DRAWING FROM

Gi
m
PS
bu

RALPH GILLES
Fiat Chrysler
Automobiles
design chief

A LIFE STORY
What is Ralph Gilles'
favourite vehicle
project so far?
Hint: It's built in Canada
By JOHN IRWIN

AUTOMOTIVE NEWS CANADA

FIAT CHRYSLER AUTOMOBILES'
design chief said he looks to create
"beauty for the masses" with his vehicle designs, a philosophy borne out of
his childhood in Montreal.
"In Canada, a lot of people don't
tend to buy the top-of-the-line product," Ralph Gilles told Automotive News
Canada.
"My dad was one of those people.
We always had the lowest-end version
of the vehicle. I'd see the one in the catalogue, and then I'd see the one in the
driveway, and there was a huge difference.
"Every level of car should be beautiful. Why should only the top-of-theline one be handsome?"
Gilles, head of design for FCA
since 2015, has had his hand in many
of the automaker's most striking and
important designs this century, dating back to the highly acclaimed 2005
Chrysler 300 sedan that raised his profile. Gilles recently revealed the Jeep
Grand Wagoneer concept, a large,
high-end utility vehicle replete with
space and luxurious design touches.
Growing up in Montreal, Gilles
said, he was "surrounded by a lot of
taste," whether in fashion or in architecture, leaving an indelible mark on
him.
"The big building at the time that

On the inspiration for the Grand
Wagoneer: "It's a fortress that
protects you, but it doesn't insulate
you from the outside." P H O T O : F C A

was impressive as a 6-year-old when I
saw it was the Olympic Stadium. There
were a lot of things that made me think
about how you can take one thing just
through design and make it have not
only appeal to the person standing next
to it but to people around the world."
Gilles also discussed:

THE GRAND WAGONEER
"The inspiration was, yeah, it's
a fortress that protects you, but it
doesn't insulate
you from the outside. The windows
are a big part of the
theme. We have
very low beltlines,
which is countertrend. A lot of new
designs have lifted the beltlines and try to make these
vehicles look sleeker and sleeker, but
at the expense of making the interior claustrophobic. So, we went in the
other direction. I'm very proud of
that."

HIS FAVOURITE DESIGNS
"I'm very proud of the Grand
Cherokee. It's been around a bit, and

it's still No. 1 in the segment. So I'm very proud
of that and the fact that
we launch our vehicles and keep adapting
them. As we understand our customers,
we adapt the vehicle.
We've done a lot of
evolving the Grand
Cherokee. ...
"And then you
have the Canadianbuilt Pacifica, which I'm
very proud of. A lot of people ask what's your favourite
design project you've worked
on, and I said the Pacifica.
Why? Because it's a Swiss
Army knife. It's got so many
concepts in one vehicle,
whether it's the Stow 'n Go
seating, the hybrid version we did, the panoramic sunroof, the multiple
entertainment screens.
"It was such a great product design
exercise. We started from the inside
out. We had employees bring their
kids to work and run around minivans and watch how they behave. We
showed them early themes. It was
wild to have actual moms and dads
contribute to this design. We've never
researched a vehicle more than that
Pacifica because we own that segment
and want to continue to own the segment. I really do like products that
appeal to the masses."

ELECTRIC VEHICLE DESIGN
"When you get to a dedicated electric vehicle, you can really start shifting proportions around. The cooling
requirements are very different. The
aerodynamic needs are a little bit
more intense as you look for range.
And of course, the packaging is very
different. The batteries tend to locate
themselves very differently than
other components in a gas car. All of
that is very exciting for a designer.
... You don't have a big grille like a
car does. You have a different way of
communicating the car's purpose and
car's brand."

COVID-19

Why the Pacifica minivan is Gilles' favourite FCA design: "It's a Swiss Army
knife. It's got so many concepts in one vehicle." P H O T O : F C A

"We haven't really skipped a beat
[with remote working]. What I didn't
expect that's happened organically is
the morale devices [FCA designers]
have. Sometimes they have morning
coffee meetings with no topics at all,
just to see each other's faces and joke
around. Same thing later in the day.

By J

AUTO

They call them happy-hour meetings at
the end of the day to kind of debrief.
"They're trying to do the work,
and the work has been outstanding.
The sketch work has been the best
I've ever seen because, in some ways,
there's no distractions, right? The
designers can lock themselves in their
room and just draw away without the
visits that you tend to get."

GENERATIONAL DIFFERENCES
"We're noticing that [young people] value certain features very differently. Whereas an older customer
might have loved a leather interior
with wood and a nice grade of materials, younger consumers seem to be all
about connectivity. They like tech in
the car. They expect almost free tech.
They expect it to be part of the deal.
They don't care so much about the
leather or the wood grain and all that
stuff. The bells and whistles to them
are the technology on board."

HOW TO DESIGN VEHICLES
WITH DIGITAL RETAIL IN MIND
"I think the styling of the car may
have to be that much more impactful.
There are certain subtleties that you
only see when you see a car physically. That's going to be a little tricky,
but we're trying to make up for it in
much more video content and things
like that. But at the end of the day,
good design is good design. If we can
make the car beautiful and make your
heart skip a beat, that should work
regardless." - ANC

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Automotive News Canada - October 2020 - v2

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