Studio visit: FCA APAC Design Shanghai

Visiting a design studio tells you more in a couple of hours about how a company is fairing than reading any press release can; it’s in this space where the firm’s future is being sketched out after all. Since FCA was formed, communication with the media has been minimal, leading some to speculate that CEO Sergio Marchionne’s grand plans are too ambitious to be brought about.

On a recent trip to Shanghai, we did get the chance to visit the firm’s relatively new APAC design facility, where the presence of Fiat and Jeep in the Chinese market are being honed for local tastes, and work on showcars and advanced research is happening at an ever-increasing pace.

Doors to FCA’s APAC studio

Design manager Inwoong Lee was on hand to talk us through how the studio operates:

“There’s the main Auburn Hills studio, Centro Stile in Italy, a studio in Brazil and we are the fourth, supporting the APAC [Australia, Japan, China, South Korea and India] region” says Lee. “Before the studio was even up and running, [chief designer] Bill Zheng and myself came to China, and were based in the product development office, to follow up on some localisation and show cars. Right now we have 10 people and two interns, but we’re growing, initially with space for 15.” The mid-term plan is to increase this to 30.

FCA Shanghai design manager Inwoong Lee talks to CDN’s Tom Phillips

The studio came online in 2014, with work on the Mefisto showcar, which debuted at the 2014 Guangzhou motor show. “This was our first project and we collaborated with Centro Stile,” says Lee. “At that time in China there were only two Fiats in the lineup – the Viaggio sedan and the Ottimo hatchback.

Mefisto showcar played on Fiat’s racing heritage dating back to the 1930s

Fiat Mefisto showcar that debuted at the Guangzhou show

“The showcar was based on the Ottimo, and we turned it into a pocket rocket racecar to help inform Chinese customers about Fiat’s racing heritage, which isn’t known here. The Fiat studio kicked off the initial design, but we got involved and ended up finalising the details and produced the showcar here, which was a challenge as we had to find and get to know the outside company that built the car in order to increase our capabilities.”

Render of the Jeep Galileo UX concept

Following this, the studio moved on to the Jeep Galileo interior concept for the 2015 Shanghai motor show. “We chose to make a concept for Jeep as the brand is perceived as more premium in China and is the pioneer of SUVs,” says Lee. “This was an advanced design project we started here, although we had to work with Auburn Hills as it has a strong HMI and user interface team, to show some of that current and future technology.” It’s also the first time the APAC studio had done an interior concept, and it was finished in Detroit, with the final piece milled, cut, sanded and stained by hand in the US before being sent back to China for the show.

Galileo concept being introduced at the Shanghai show

The studio is currently 100-percent digital, with prototyping, hard modelling and show car builds outsourced to one of three outside vendors in Shanghai. However, the studio also supports other countries in the APAC region, including India where the car market is gaining momentum.

Studio is digital-only for now, with modelling done via vendor partners elsewhere in Shanghai

The studio recently designed a showcar for the Delhi motor show, a variant of the Punto called the Urban Cross, designed in response to the marketing team’s request for a small crossover version of the Punto aimed at first-time buyers.

Fiat Punto Urban Cross sketch

“This is the first project we did with a vendor in India,” adds Lee. “We ended up working with a company called DC Design, who’d done an Aston Martin showcar in the past, and the owner is a graduate of Art Center. We were originally planning to build the car in China, but we only had five months to do the project. There’s a strict law against bringing right-hand drive cars like they drive in India into China, which would have taken about five months to bring it in and re-export. Ralph [Gilles, global head of FCA design] suggested we do it in India instead, and that proved a success and has now become our strategy to help build relationships in different markets.”

Materials board compares US and locally-sourced fabrics

As well showcars, a key part of the studio’s job is to support the localisation of new products. “We have to select suppliers here that can match what’s sold elsewhere, most recently for the Cherokee,” says Lee. “We heavily rely on the suppliers to support what we tell them to do, and our designers participate in the reviews to go through the colours, materials and particularly perceived quality to make sure quality keeps improving.

“For example, if marketing feels that the design of the steering wheel of the Cherokee might not be premium enough for the Chinese market. It might be OK for the US market, where the car is cheaper, but customers end up paying about 30 percent more in China to buy the same car, so their expectations are higher here. So we do our own proposals, based on local knowledge, and work with each brand studio to make those improvements happen.”

Although FCA’s Shanghai facility is small, there’s plenty more space for new hires

A visit to FCA’s studio in Shanghai reveals an arm of the company that’s in transition, as the firm introduces its new generation of cars to one of the most important global car markets. The attention paid to getting the cars right for China is therefore understandable, and clearly occupies the majority of the studio’s time and resources.

Studio digital review room, affectionately known as ‘the Bat Cave’

However, there’s a much wider part for this studio to play in the future, and while it’s quiet now, it is unlikely to remain so for long. “We’re trying to build more competencies and hoping to do whole projects in the near-future,” adds Lee. “Our goal is to become a studio where we could fully support any design activities for the region, whether that’s production or showcar and also to be a base for the APAC region so we share our knowledge with the other studios around the world. We want to become a studio just like Auburn Hills or Centro Stile.”

Design team mixes youth and experience

Key to this success is domestic designers, and the studio is improving its links with local schools to help facilitate its expansion. “Ralph has been very supportive and is letting us do more projects, he sees the skill sets that local people are bringing in.” says Lee. “All of our designers are Chinese, with mixed levels of experience, and we have growing relationships with schools around China where we will hire from. We are also getting into a position where we can sponsor projects at schools in China. The studio is only a little over a year old, but we have lots of thoughts and ways we’d like to expand.”

It’s a situation that we’re keen to keep an eye on as Chinese car design, FCA and the Chinese car market all evolve.