Marek Reichman: “You don’t need an Aston Martin, you desire one. And that’s my job

My job really is the emotional connection with the consumer. You don’t need an Aston Martin. You desire one. It’s about creating something that will make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, because there is a visceral, emotional sensation and connection.

I laugh with many of our customers, that I’ve probably cost them £5 million over the time I’ve been at Aston Martin. That’s a lot of money to outlay because you like something that somebody did. My role has been to make people more aware of the brand through design and create product. If you go back to the early 2000s, we were making less than 2000 cars annually.

Now it’s about 6000. It changed as design became far more recognised within the brand. It’s about marrying performance and design.

Both the Aston Martin Valour and Valiant cars are manual gearbox V12s in a digital world. But there are collectors, aficionados and fans that love the visceral feeling of mechanical cars. I think you can see that at events like the Goodwood Festival of Speed. But what always surprises me is when I go into London – even in my DBX – and 11 year-olds on the corner ‘pap’ me and ask me to rev the engine. That shouldn’t happen.

I believe that exciting product, with an authentic message is what the consumer wants. As a creative, you need to have your eyes wide open. In terms of inspiration it’s not always a building or a car. In the movie Dune: Part Two, the music, colour, drama and anticipation of sensations inspired me a lot. From a product perspective, I’m fascinated by what Apple does. It is not always about revolutionary changes, but evolutionary ones in material, touch and sensitivity.

Around 90% of our cars since 1913 still exist. It’s a great statistic and it might have gone up recently because cars we thought were missing have been found and restored. There have been circa 120,000 cars made in 111 years, so they’re not landfill.

The type of designers I want are talented agitators, multifaceted people with vision. They won’t be fearful of drawing and presenting something that might not seem to fit, because I’m the curator and what I need is a team around me that is willing to give ‘input’. Maybe they come from a slightly different perspective, or have been through a different education system or discipline.

Maybe they only sketch, hate AI, or love AI. I just want the variety. There’s no point having a team of centre-forwards. But then they have to work together, because we’re so small.

If I include all the disciplines – CAS modeling, clay modeling, interior design, exterior design and colour and materials – there are 98 people in our team and the five design disciplines are split 20% more or less, so 20 people per discipline.

The most important way to keep yourself ahead of the curve, is to experience the curve. You’ve got to be on it. There’s no point looking at a surfer and going, ‘I wish I were doing that’. Just go do it. I can sketch. I can pick up a pen. I can pick up a tool and make a clay model. So why can’t I input five words into AI?

As creatives, we have the ability to sketch an idea that doesn’t exist on the planet. Just like Ridley Scott had amazing ideas for Blade Runner and George Lucas with Star Wars – and Syd Mead, who probably inspired Scott and Lucas – because he was a visionary. I still go back to Einstein’s comment, ‘knowledge is nothing without imagination’. AI is nothing without the imagination to use it. And that’s why I think it’s important. We can’t ignore it, we have to enhance it and if it comes up with a better idea, all we have to do is solve the ‘ownership’ issue.

Ultimately, I’m a fan of architecture, because I believe architecture gives you proportion. Where the masses sit, you’re creating architecture. Through my Royal College of Art training and during my car design career I have always been fascinated by the world of architecture and classics by Richard Rogers, Norman Foster, Renzo Piano and Zaha Hadid.

There’s something about that special skill. It’s a scale thing. Their imagination is a sketch, but then they have the vision to understand the volumes. What I learnt through our recently completed Aston Martin Residences in Miami, and through the personal homes we’ve been doing, is a greater sense of impact through scale.