It takes a real commitment for an automaker to change course if its vehicle interiors have been consistently substandard. Long ago, some automakers considered interiors a low priority – a great place to save money by using copious amounts of hard, black plastic sourced from the lowest bidder.
Why spend more than necessary on trim covering the lower door panel or the exhaust tunnel down near the accelerator pedal? Bob Lutz, former vice chairman of Chrysler and later General Motors, complained openly that suppliers used way too many chemicals in their plants to help a plastic part release from its mold, resulting in unsightly orange peel that didn’t go away.
It took many years for the industry as a whole to realize that no driver wants to rest their elbows on a hard armrest, or run their fingers over a dingy looking rat-fur headliner, or turn up the radio to mask excessive road or wind noise, or buy seat covers because the upholstery is tearing or discoloring after a few years.
It’s been quite a journey for many automakers, including the former Chrysler Corp., whose product developers have been distracted for 30 years wondering about job security as the company changed hands several times.
‘Pissed Off’ With ‘Water Pistol Grade Interiors’
One person who survived all the upper-management turmoil is Ralph Gilles, who started his career at then-Chysler in 1992 as a designer after college graduation. He has since ascended to the post as head of all design for Stellantis, where he has the latitude to continue pressing all 14 brands at Stellantis to do world-class interiors, rather than looking for ways to cut corners.
During a recent media roundtable, Gilles talked about how design has evolved at the company, and he freely admitted that Chrysler interiors were awful. When he saw the beautiful interior of the second-generation Audi A4 that launched in 2002, he “got pissed off” with the “water pistol grade interiors that we had” and decided Chrysler interiors needed to follow suit.
“Audi came out with the A4, and that turned me upside down. When I saw the Audi A4, that was it.”
–Stellantis Chief Design Officer Ralph Gilles
One of his first steps, during the DaimlerChrysler years, was hiring Mercedes-Benz designer Klaus Busse in 2005 as manager of interior design for Ram Trucks, before becoming head interior design for FiatChrysler. “I told him, your job is to make our interiors number one,” Gilles recalls. “And he did.”
In 2007, about the same time Daimler and Chrysler were untangling their “merger of equals,” Gilles created a dedicated interior design studio and began staffing it with people who didn’t just want to draw exteriors.
Read the full article on CarBuzz
This article originally appeared on CarBuzz and is republished here with permission.
Read the full article here