Sasha Selipanov on design trends and opening his own studio

Popular sportscar designer Sasha Selipanov has revealed a project that has been largely under wraps since his departure from Koenigsegg in March 2022. An amicable split, the move came at a time where Selipanov wanted to try something new and – more specifically – to tackle what he perceived as a gap in the market.

His new studio, Hardline27, was up and running almost immediately, and enquiries started coming in not long after. Although the studio has only just been announced, the team has worked on numerous projects for (as yet unnamed) OEMs but also start-ups and even tech companies.

Looking quintessentially ‘’LA” with sunglasses, a button down shirt and ice tea – not to mention a Hardline27-branded cap – Selipanov joined CDN to explain why he went solo (figuratively speaking), how the studio will approach design and why his team aims to break the mould.

How has it been since announcing the studio, and how many people knew about this already – you kept it under wraps pretty well…

I’ve been working independently since the end of 2022, but I didn’t want to announce anything until I made proper arranagements. Most of my friends knew I was up to something and of course the people I’d been collaborating with, but it was about sorting the branding, locations and key projects before making a formal announcement.

Why did you want to open your own studio? You left Koenigsegg in March 2022 – was the idea of a studio already in your head at that point?

The idea was there all along. If anything, it played a bit of a role in as I was inspired by Christian von Koenigsegg’s general mind and creativity that reaches far beyond vehicles themselves and more into a business realm. That’s something I wanted to explore – in part due to my time there. I was also nearing 40 at the time, and in preparation for this big over the hill moment, I felt that if I didn’t do this now I probably never would. I’ve had a very fruitful time in employment and an exciting career, but it also felt like one going to one more OEM wouldn’t make a big difference to me – it’s just another company. While exciting, it wouldn’t really be a professional page turner. Starting my own company and becoming an entrepreneur, manging a portfolio of clients and trying to come up with the best possible solution? That is a page turner.

Where did the name Hardline27 come from?

Part of the reason why I wanted to start my own company is the anti-establishment, anti-authority part of me I’ve had all of my life. I don’t like rules or respect them just because they are rules – I like to challenge conventions. This is something I have had to very consciously downplay at various points in my career. There is this non-conformist in me.

I thought starting my own business would mean I had somewhere I could make a unique selling proposition – this belief in absolutes, right and wrong, what’s beautiful and not so beautiful, this idea that there is the right answer and the wrong answer to a business solution. We have these two vertical lines in our logo to encapsulate those ‘hard lines’ of thinking.

We are in a world where beauty is in the eye of the beholder and every idea is as good as the next; I wanted to open something that is a little bit more non-conformist, to do what we believe is right and work with our clients to position them on the right side of things. Number 27 is a bit of a counter to that rigid approach of Hardline – it is a number that Formula 1 drivers like Jean Alesi, Gilles Villeneuve and Nigel Mansell raced with. These guys raced with their heart on their sleeve, drove with the most passion, wreckless abandon and beauty. Their driving style and personas outlived them because of that. It’s the passion that left a mark on people – including me as a young kid.

You have strong opinions on the subject of beauty. Which cars from the history books do you personally consider to be beautiful?

Beauty is not up for debate, it is something that people should universally agree on. Steve Jobs once said that if you pick up an iPhone it doesn’t matter whether you are in California or in India, you feel it’s an object of great value and beauty. In my mind, it is a perfect unity between what an object looks like and what it actually does – it is a oneness between form, function, purpose and reason. Something that gives an object a sense of absolute beauty. This can be seen in the Land Rover Defender or the Le Mans GT40, Ferrari 250, Mclaren MP4/4, the original Mini, the Golf Mk1.

I am not aiming for a narrow vision of beauty, it depends on what you mean by ’performance’. If it is about going off road, then beauty looks very different to if it means setting a lap time. If performance is about picking your kids up from school, beauty will have a different meaning again.

You’ve been in stealth mode for a little bit, so are there cars on the road you’ve had a hand in as Hardline27?

We have to stay relatively secretive for now, but we have had a very successful year this and last year. We have had around 17 clients, a few full vehicle programmes where people have come to us with a clean sheet of paper to create an engineering package, a strategy for interior and exterior design, full size models etc. This has been very exciting. We’ve had sportscar companies too, which in respect of my career to date comes very naturally to me. We’ve also had start-ups come in that are new to the automotive business. We have this kind of holistic view of working. We have even worked with some tech companies.

How big is the team, and are you looking to expand?

The whole team is amazing. We are a flexible team; we have people who work for us full time but also people we connect with when they are needed for certain projects. We fluctuate between six and ten people, roughly. But a key part of this is our efficiency, we have cut down on redundancies and that means we can be very competitive. We are definitely looking to expand – I’m looking to bring more tech companies in, and not necessarily with the view of moving into automotive. There are lots of things we’ve learned in the sportscar industry that can be brought to other product design applications. We don’t want to trade scale for quality, so we are going to have a very controlled, responsible expansion.

I have to ask about the hat – when is your merch line dropping?

It’s funny because this is the same hat that I’ve always been wearing, it just has a ‘27’ on it now. In all seriousness I think we will do merch at some point, but right now I’m more focussed on studio.