Leadership transition at GM’s California Advanced Design Studio

Frank Saucedo, the founder and long-time leader of GM’s Advanced Design Studio, has retired after over twenty years at the post. Brian Smith, former exterior design director for Cadillac, is replacing him.

Saucedo is very close to a GM ‘lifer’, having worked for Opel in Europe and then leading the North Hollywood studio for two decades after a four-year stint at Volkswagen.

Saucedo grew up drawing cars on the back of his father’s sales invoices and tinkering in with family cars in the garage. He didn’t realise car design could be a career until a high school teacher encouraged him to check out Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. He instantly found a home and a career future.

Graduating in 1984, he received job offers from Opel in Germany and Chrysler in Detroit. He leaned toward Chrysler, wanting to stay in the States, but Chris Bangle, then with Opel, took him to dinner with a group of Opel designers. Saucedo was excited by the rapport and energy from the international team. Additionally, Saucedo’s girlfriend, who had spent time in Italy while in college, encouraged him to step out and go to Europe. Saucedo would take the job with Opel – and marry the girlfriend, his wife, Regina.

Saucedo would stay with GM for twelve years and then move to Volkswagen in 1996. But GM wouldn’t let Saucedo go, and in 2000, Wayne Cherry, then Vice President of Design, and Saucedo’s boss back at Opel, asked him to lead a new advanced design studio that would ultimately be established in North Hollywood in Los Angeles.

Saucedo was hesitant at first. “I was very reluctant because I was very happy at Volkswagen and I loved it, and I was a bit scared again,” he would later tell the Los Angeles Times.

Regina again gave him the push he needed. “She said to me, ‘When are you going to get an opportunity to open a studio?’ And it was true. Once again, I was very lucky she talked me into it.”

Having established the Advance Studio, Saucedo, no doubt with encouragement from the gregarious Wayne Cherry, was not content to just establish a “design fortress” with a periscope for observing the LA scene. Saucedo and GM established strong relationships with ArtCenter and the Hollywood studios, participating in, among others, the “Transformers” movie franchise.

Saucedo’s successor, Brian Smith, needs no introduction to long time GM watchers. He was the Exterior Design Director for Cadillac until June of 2022. Before that he held the same position at Chevrolet. In the ‘aughts he was an Advanced Design Manager in the UK studio.

The long list of vehicle projects that he led includes the Cadillac CTS-V and ATS-V; the 2014 Cadillac CTS and Cadillac ATS; the Chevrolet Camaro (both concept and production), the Cadillac Sixteen concept and the Saab 9X concept.

He will no doubt carry on the Saucedo tradition, but evolve it for a new era. We hope to have a conversation with Smith in the near future, so watch this space.