Former Jaguar design boss Julian Thomson has been announced as director of a new GM Advanced Design Europe studio to be opened in the Midlands at the end of this year.
He has been working under the radar on a feasibility study of the project since January and officially joined in July.
The move is part of GM CEO Mary Barra’s well-publicised plan to get back into Europe’s car markets “in a significant way”, but doing it with GM’s current brands, following the sale of Opel and Vauxhall to Stellantis in 2017.
The former global number-one car maker departed Europe saying it wanted to concentrate on more profitable truck sales, mostly in the US, but it has since decided that it misses having a European influence.
Although Thomson will be based in the UK, he said the new studio, which will initially have a staff of 35, will participate in all worldwide GM projects and have the freedom to suggest new ones.
The establishment of the studio is understood to have been sponsored by GM’s Detroit-based vice-president of global design, Mike Simcoe. He believes that as the group moves completely into EV markets, it needs more influence from Europe – arguably the world’s most sophisticated EV market.
The exact location of Thomson’s new studio is yet to be revealed, but he said you “wouldn’t have to be a genius” to predict a location close to many similar businesses in the Midlands.
The studio will open with a fairly small staff, said Thomson, while he takes time to hire the rest of the team. He wants a very disparate team and said he already has “a large number of applicants” and there “a few I’ve worked with before that I’m chasing”.
Since January, Thomson has been studying GM’s product line-up closely. He particularly admires recent developments at Cadillac (“The way it had changed its image is remarkable”) and highly rates the latest Chevrolet Corvette. “I’d love to own one, and being involved in designing a Corvette would be a dream,” he confessed.
The GM Europe studio won’t just work on “Europeanising” existing models, said Thomson. Its remit will be as wide as any other GM design facility’s and it will have real-time contact with American, Korean and Chinese facilities.
“Mike Simcoe has made it clear that he wants us involved in the whole global network of GM design,” said Thomson. “We will be a kind of think-tank, a contributor to everything that goes on inside the mothership.”
