The Designers Pt 7: Guy Burgoyne, Geely

“Geely’s been making cars for 10-plus years but it’s only really getting serious about design now”

I see Chinese brands catching up with their more established counterparts very quickly. Most local brands are investing in design, with studios in inspiring places like Shanghai and Beijing. I know this from a Geely point of view and suspect it from others. Lots of people say that China is doing in 20 years what took the Western car industry 80 to 90. Even today not everyone knows Geely, though. What I usually say to those who don’t is: ‘we own Volvo.’ We have a job to publicise the brand globally.

We’ve managed to develop a few traditions internally however. With 2015 the Chinese Year of the Sheep – or Goat, depending on how you translate the Chinese characters – we made a sculpture to celebrate and presented it as a surprise to our chairman. It also made a cameo appearance at our Shanghai motor show stand, and we hope that anyone who sees it can recognise some of our new DNA in its form. This is great fun and is now a yearly internal contest. 2016 is the Year of the Monkey, and we’ve seen some good designs come forward.

Geely sculpture on display in Shanghai

Four years ago we had 10 people in a borrowed office space, now we’ve got more than 350 people in two fully-equipped studios in Sweden and Shanghai and two satellite digital studios in California and Barcelona. It used to be that we would take experienced international people and mix them with local guys who weren’t so experienced. But in the last three years all those local people have got three full production cars under their belts, so they’ve gained a massive amount of experience. We’ve gone from having to beg for good people to being a company where we have to turn down talent. There is so much design education in China and we are supporting that in different ways. Geely owns a university and we do student competitions with Car Design News.

Guy Burgoyne

When I interview potential designers, I’m always trying to pick their brains, to find out how they think. Then I want to know they can convey what’s inside their brain to other people. Sometimes it’s verbal, some people almost body-pop a solution out in front of you. The best aesthetic designers I’ve worked with are the ones that can do a sketch – three different views in 10 minutes – that completely describes the car and you go, ‘I know exactly what’s in your head and that you’ve solved it all.’ If they can’t communicate they’re not going to succeed.

A big highlight for 2015 was our all-new Emgrand Concept, which is a precursor to something you’ll see in production in 2016. We are really trying to define ourselves and hopefully the show cars help make that more clear. I’d say that as a brand we are trying to be dynamic, hi-tech. ‘Dynamic’ is a useful buzzword. You can apply it to a two-seat small car and an SUV and have different meanings. It’s mainly for customers so they feel like they’re buying exciting products that can offer agility. That ‘agility’ could be in mobility or connectivity. It has a lot of meanings and we want to look into all of them.

Geely GC9

The company’s chairman, Mr Li Shufu, is a very inspiring and entrepreneurial guy. He’s very much a friend to design who gives us gifts as his way of suggesting his design thinking. He gives us a vase and explains what he likes about the vase to see if that can influence us. But he doesn’t tell us what car to choose, ever. We have a very nice relationship.

The team is busier than ever. I have never seen a studio more full than in the last few weeks of 2015. Having seven different interior bucks with less than a metre between each makes for some interesting ways to view the brand! Standing on a ladder at one end means you can see all the instrument panels in one view. And opening all the doors 180 degrees means you can see them all from one spot, too.

Geely Emgrand concept

There was a worry at the beginning of 2015 about customers buying. But sales are coming back, particularly in China, we’re not too worried about that. Across the whole industry, everyone’s talking about autonomous, start-ups and electrification. The world talks about Silicon Valley (and about start-ups often with Chinese money behind them) but I’m not sure if my colleagues in Europe and America realise how many IT start-ups there are in China. Due to the volumes of people, these companies have got massive market share and access to big data.

People expect colour interfaces on their shavers these days. So their expectations for their cars – one of their biggest purchases – are very high. Why shouldn’t they be? If you don’t have a connected car you’re not going to be relevant, or your brand is going to be in a different place in the market. I always say, if aliens landed 100 years ago, took a quick look at the world and came back today, they’d say: ‘Oh look, they’ve still got those cars with wheels at each corner, four or five passengers, a steering wheel, windscreen wipers and headlamps.’ In some ways that’s a bit disappointing.

Geely Design

Some product managers say you can either have this or that feature, but not both. I always react when they do that because it’s usually just because they couldn’t be stuffed, or it’s too hard. ‘Too hard’ is probably a good reason to put the effort in, because it means someone else hasn’t. Some brands may use fantastic quality as their selling point, but I don’t want to give them a design prize for it. I’d give them a perceived quality prize. Just because everything fits and you cannot see imperfections, that does not give a car beauty or soul. I don’t say we shouldn’t strive for quality, but a truly successful design can have both.

Guy Burgoyne

Role VP Geely Design China
Age 46
Nationality British-Australian
Location Shanghai, China
Education Coventry University, UK

Guy’s cars of 2015

Concept
1. Porsche Mission E
2. Nissan Gripz
3. Citroën Aircross

Production
1. Jaguar F-Pace
2. Ford GT
3. Skoda Superb

Car Design Review 3

This interview is taken from the Car Design Review 3 yearbook. Published annually by the writers of Car Design News, the book rounds up all of the major car-design trends seen in the past 12 months, counts down the best production and concept car designs of the year and features interviews with 18 of the best car designers working today, plus an in-depth interview with Syd Mead, this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award winner.