Memo to Chrysler's Ralph Gilles: Speak Plain English and Don't Let 'Em Push You Around
September 02, 2008

By Bill Visnic

It's the end of an era at Chrysler LLC, as design chief Trevor Creed now is retired, pulling down the curtain on a period in which Chrysler attained a reputation for adventurous and often outrageous design initiatives, particularly for concept vehicles - of which a refreshingly high proportion made the transition to production models.

Taking Creed's place - starting this week - is Ralph Gilles, 38-year-old father of Chrysler's 300 sedan, which launched in 2004 with near-universal admiration.

But automotive journalists know plenty about automotive styling that the so-called "trained" designers don't, so in acknowledgement of too-young Gilles' promotion to one of Chrysler's most vital posts, our memo of what to do during your first year on the job:

1. Make sure the "update" of the 300 is meaningful. But not too meaningful.

  The 300 still looks fresh and contemporary, but the shock-and-awe definitely is diminished. The brawny-but-sophisticated look has to evolve - but ever so gently. Take a page from the rulebook of your former Mercedes-Benz partners, which says, "revise but remind" of where the car comes from.

The Germans have been doing this since time immemorial. The Japanese haven't. You know which camp has the storied design reputation, Ralph.

2. Restore some of the concept-car energy. Oh, but it still has to mean something, too.

For the past couple of years, Creed was pretty much phoning in those concepts, right? So get back on track with some of the outlandish stuff on which Chrysler made its bones. Yeah, you know, the good stuff, the cars and trucks Chrysler should be building right now, concepts like the Firepower (2005) and ME412 (2004) supercars; the Dodge Hornet (2006) and Demon roadster (2007) and the M80 (2002) and   Rampage (2006) pickups.

Or the ones that just plain looked good but had no business being produced - the classic way it used to be for concept cars: the lanky Chronos (1998); the luscious Atlantic (1995) and the loopy Copperhead (1998). And let's not forget the laughable Tomahawk (2003).

Sure, not all of these concepts should have become production cars. But the best thing about Chrysler's recent great era of concept cars was the likelihood than any one of them could have...

3. Let's get off "retro."

Self-explanatory.

4. Don't buy any of that Nardelli-is-a-"car-guy" crap.

Probably sometime today, Jim Press is going to saunter in with Bob Nardelli, who in turn is going to proceed to tell you the way it's going to be.

Politely but firmly show Mr. Nardelli the way out. If he needs further urging to leave you to your chosen vocation, slip Mr. Nardelli the phone number of Ron Zarella, a guy over at Bausch & Lomb who also briefly and annoyingly dabbled in the car business.

Designers must have a degree of autonomy, Ralph. Yes, you're too young to be a veep, we all know, and you actually seem to be personable. Do not let those drawbacks keep you from standing up for yourself.

5. How about speaking colloquial English instead of Designer English?

Your contemporaries, fellas like J. Mays and Chris Bangle, may be out-of-the-ballpark geniuses, but on any given day we only understand about a third of what they're saying.
So how about let's stand down from words and phrases that don't mean much to people in the real world.

This includes (but is not limited to):

• minimalist
• surface; surfacing; particularly: "flame surfacing"
• cues
• intent
• DNA

Posted by Michelle Krebs at 4:46 AM under Chrysler , Commentary , Personalities | Comments (1) | digg this | Seed Newsvine

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