General Motors Vice President of Global Design, Michael Simcoe, is one of the few individuals who’s had the opportunity to steer the automaker’s global design vision. Although he’s new to the position, it won’t be long before we begin to see Simcoe’s stamp of approval on numerous GM vehicles.
The first Australian to hold the position recently sat down with Autoline to discuss a bevy of topics from the demise of Holden manufacturing, the sale of Opel and Vauxhall to PSA Groupe, current design trends and how he approaches design. The 26-minute-long interview makes for an excellent look inside GM design, and potentially a glimpse at what we can expect from the future.
Simcoe has often been pegged as a designer with an engineering background, a very different thinker from past GM design chiefs. It’s one of many traits GM product chief Mark Reuss admired of Simcoe when the automaker selected the designer for the top position, following Ed Welburn’s retirement.
His ethos could potentially help engineering pushback over various ideas, since Simcoe knows both sides of the world—a right- and left-brain guy, so to speak.
Watch the entire interview above and you may catch a few interesting nuggets of information, such as Simcoe’s desire to do a large luxury Cadillac and Buick coupe.
Comments
It is people like this that reassure me that GM is truly moving in the right direction. Michael not only seems to be a car guy, but just a good honest all around person. Just the understanding of people like me that are 50%left 49% right brained and how they fit in Engineering and design. Not to artsy, not to reclusive engineerey. Also to realize there is unlimited talent all around the world.
Large cheap taillights are not the way of the future. Today we have LED light therefore there is no need for large oversized, cheap looking taillights. They look like cheap costume jewelry. Jest look at the Cadillac Exclade, the taillights could double foe billboard in Lose Vagus. Now compear that with the Mazda CX-9. All GM taillights are oversized and for no good reason for the consumer. GM need to get on board or be left behind. All that cheap red plastic don’t work anymore.