The Designers Pt6 – Ralph Gilles, FCA

I love working for a company that doesn’t mind taking risks. The last five years at Chrysler and now Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) has been a journey. You’ve seen the Jeep brand proliferate and create brand-new products. In 2013 it was the Cherokee which was very polarising but the market has spoken and it’s doing well and in 2014 came the Renegade and [sister car] Fiat 500X.

Even with the riskiest product if you do it well and it’s well packaged – if it’s got good bones – it resonates. Sometimes you have to take a leap of faith. The pace is breakneck but as problem solving designers, it’s what we do. People want to come and be part of the story now. They are personally attracted to vehicles. The Mid-west has been our stronghold but we are starting to get young people from the coasts and from other countries. They are intrigued by what we are doing and want to be part of it. We are finding no issue with people wanting to live here now. They love the mystery of the grit of Detroit.

The whole world is watching Europe. It’s a stressful time but Fiat Chrysler’s position is more diversified globally so less sensitive to the ebb and flow of the market. The design community is kicking butt. There’s really not a bad car on the market. It’s fighting for relevance in that crowd. We sometimes help Fiat’s design team and vice versa. They look to us to understand the American market a little bit, like in final colour and trim combinations which work better in the States.

But they still own their design and they really helped us take the Renegade to the finish line too. I had two of my designers live in Italy for a few months to sit alongside Fiat designers. They loved it. Ate great food. Lifelong relationships were formed. It’s a positively functional situation.

“Even with the riskiest product if you do it well and it’s well packaged, if it’s got good bones, it resonates”

In the wider industry I have to give Renault a lot of credit. I love the Captur. I think they did a beautiful job. It’s intriguing to see the big Germans go small. Watching the Audi A3 and the Mercedes A-Class resonating reasonably well here. The small luxury compact segment is helping us too because Americans are finding that size isn’t always so important. It’s been a concept foreign to the US for a long time. They pay for size. But the Millennial generation is very practical and understands value packaging. They don’t have the image needs of their parents. The right size is better than too big.

Concepts? We don’t have time right now. It’s not down to budget. We don’t have the spare resources. They take almost the same amount of time and effort as production cars as in Chrysler’s history they’ve always been drivable so you have to engineer them and they need interiors. Every waking body I have is working on ‘the real stuff’ but conversely I think our cars feel more conceptual. In colour and trim we are going to see an explosion of colour.

On exteriors there’s going to be a lot of contrast shades. We have it a little on the Renegade. The interior is going the same way. It’s more progressive than I’ve ever seen it. We’re pushing the limits of what our factory can make. Cars are feeling more and more custom every day. It doesn’t effect the quality. It’s more about managing the complexity. In the cabin we are improving the quality of the screens and the processing speed. The biggest challenge behind the scenes is all that information. You’re not just buying a music head unit any more. You’re buying a processor.

Getting good interface designers is tough. They are not born fast enough. There is a lot of demand for that skill-set all over the world. But luckily, our industry is quite sexy and interesting because it’s so varied. We are lucky at Chrysler to have so many brands, types of vehicles and personalities. We’re using the infotainment system to differentiate the car now. It’s the way they work, what you can watch and how they flow.

I have more staff than five years ago but it’s a different complexion. The team is split into almost five chunks. We have infotainment, interior, exterior, surface and digital surface groups. Including administration and clay modelling, there are approximately 400 people. The interior team makes up 50% and is every bit as important. In the past it was perhaps only 25%. We’re not necessarily hiring from the same schools any more but it’s brought new talent, so it’s fun.

Ralph Gilles

Name Ralph Gilles
Role Senior VP product design, FCA North America
Age, nationality 45, USA
Location Michigan, USA
Education College for Creative Studies, Detroit

Ralph’s cars of 2014

Concept

1. Infiniti Q80
2. Lamborghini Asterion
3. Audi Prologue

Production

1. Mercedes AMG-GT
2. Lamborghini Huracán
3. Volvo XC90