Ford’s design chief believes the design of the firm’s cars has become a lot more “creative” after it sold off many of its Premier Automotive Group (PAG) brands.
J Mays, Ford’s group vice president for design and its chief creative officer, said the sale of former PAG brands Jaguar, Land Rover, Volvo and Aston Martin had improved Ford’s designs and allowed it to pursue its ‘kinetic’ design language.
Referring to having to oversee the designs of several different marques, Mays said: “It was like painting the Golden Gate Bridge. I would get to one end and the other end would already start rusting, so I’d run back and start going again.
“I was an inch deep and a mile wide. I would go from one review to the next, and then start the whole thing over again.”
Since dismantling PAG, Ford has pursued a global vehicle strategy, something Mays believes has been beneficial to the Ford’s designs.
“There’s a huge array of creativity afforded to our design team,” he said. “Kinetic design applies to both exteriors and interiors, but there’s a framework that keeps them inside of the brand parameters.”
