GM adds exterior design specialist to UK studio

General Motors has added another new face to its UK-based European advanced design studio. Hitesh Panchal joins from Jaguar Land Rover as an experienced exterior designer, spending more than 11 years at the company.

He will move from Coventry to nearby Warwickshire as an exterior design specialist and link up with former JLR design director Julian Thomson, who was revealed in September as the studio’s new boss.

“Best of luck,” Thomson noted on Panchal’s post on LinkedIn. “Your new job must be brilliant to tear you away from Gaydon!” Panchal says that it was “always an ambition” to work at JLR and achieved “many personal milestones” during his time there.

A graduate of Coventry University’s Automotive Design bachelor’s degree, Panchal went on to further study at the Royal College of Art between 2009 and 2011, with a summer internship at Jaguar Advanced Design – which clearly proved to be a fruitful placement. Jaguar in particular clearly resonated with Panchal, who envisionined a new concept car as one of his final projects at Coventry. Another project from his time at RCA, the Citroen Fashionista, can be seen from our archives here.

It was a big deal when General Motors revealed it would be returning to the UK with a new studio; it has been over a decade since the brand closed its Coventry studio. The team is gradually being built out and as Thomson told CDN back in September, the aim will be to recruit a diverse mix of designers from different backgrounds.

“We want a really wide selection of ideas and people contributing,” he said. “[But] first and foremost, I need some really good designers with experience.”

It will be interesting to see who else enters the fold as the team at GM Advanced Design Europe takes shape, and whether there are more familiar faces returning to join Thomson.