For Aspiring Car Designers: “The Journey of a Car Designer – Part 3(Chrysler / First Half)” [Shikado’s Column #8 ]

Off to America

Following the circumstances described in Column #7, from late 1993 I shifted my job search focus from Europe to North America, expanding my targets beyond small carrozzerie to include major automobile manufacturers. In North America, there were the so-called Detroit Big-3 represented by GM, Ford, and Chrysler. Unfortunately, I had no acquaintances or friends working there, but thanks to Car Styling magazine, I was able to learn each company’s address and design directors’ names. During this period, following Toyota Design’s establishment of Calty in California, most major manufacturers including the Big-3 and German companies had design centers operating in Southern California.

Questions arose such as “Do overseas offices of Japanese manufacturers want Japanese designers?” but having no luxury to choose, I mailed A4-sized folders containing my resume and portfolio to nearly every office by the end of 1993.

In January 1994, promising responses came from two companies. The first was from Korea’s KIA (then still under US Ford) California office, and the second from Chrysler Pacifica (also California-based). However, Chrysler indicated Pacifica wasn’t hiring, but an interview would be possible if I was prepared to come to Detroit.

Interview Begins

Having already mailed the A4 portfolio, I prepared larger sketches for the interview and flew to California in early February 1994 for the KIA interview. While the interview was well-received, their response was: “We’re very interested in your career and design abilities, but we cannot sponsor your work visa. If you can obtain a visa somehow, we’ll hire you.” The biggest hurdle I’d imagined—the work visa—immediately became reality, leaving me quite discouraged.

Though somewhat deflated, I quickly switched gears as my next destination awaited, and flew to Detroit.

After checking into my hotel upon arrival, I headed to Chrysler Corp. headquarters the next morning. What surprised me was the appointed interview time: 7:15 AM. I would later learn Chrysler’s work hours were shifted earlier, from 7 AM to 4 PM. Upon entering the Chrysler Corp. building that early morning, the design HR manager guided me directly to the design building, introducing me to one of the directors, Neil Walling. All our previous correspondence had been through him, but this was our first meeting—I was quite surprised to discover he stood over 2 meters tall. The interview didn’t include Tom Gale, the design VP at the time, but three directors who were his trusted lieutenants (John Herlits, Neil Walling, and Trevor Creed) all attended together.

Since I’d conveyed my motivations and experience via resume beforehand, the interview lasted only about 20 minutes, mostly explaining the new sketches I’d brought. Afterward, Walling said, “There’s somewhere I need you to go now with the HR manager.” We went to an outside law office—an immigration lawyer’s office—where they processed my work visa application for about an hour. Upon returning to Chrysler’s design office, Walling greeted me: “Your motivations came through clearly. We’ll arrange your visa, so please come if you’re willing. (Pointing to the completely white, snowy landscape visible from the office window) Can you live in such a snowy place?” Though I had zero snow country experience, being a skiing enthusiast who only associated snow with ski slopes, I replied, “Absolutely no problem. I gratefully accept your offer.”

I was deeply impressed by how efficiently they’d resolved the major hurdle of the work visa in just a few hours on interview day itself, and firmly decided to take this new step with this company without hesitation. Though I’d experience this several more times, American business decision-making speed is truly remarkable.

Moving to America, to Michigan

From there, I returned to Japan for about two months to settle affairs and prepare for the US move, arriving in Michigan with my family by late April 1994.

In May 1994, work began at the design department within Chrysler Corp. headquarters in Auburn Hills, suburban Detroit, Michigan.

My assignment was the Packaging Studio, mainly handling advanced development of production cars. However, my very first project was an interesting one: designing a dedicated trailer for the Plymouth Prowler, which had been announced as a concept car at the 1993 Detroit Auto Show and subsequently greenlit for production.

It was decided to create this to compensate for the vehicle’s near-total lack of cargo space. From simple sketches to CAD models to scale models, through design top reviews, the production design was determined. This product type would’ve been unthinkable at Toyota, and the design speed—it felt like building my favorite plastic models—was enjoyably fast.

As that trailer project wrapped up, advanced development for the second-generation Dodge Neon began, and I was assigned its exterior design.

The Packaging Studio’s job was studying current models, pursuing how to improve proportions to create newer, more attractive products.

Vehicle dimensions were set nearly identical to the first Neon, and as I began the full-size model while adjusting overall height, roofline, and deck height through sketches, design VP Tom Gale made a remark during his weekly studio walkthrough review that struck like a bolt from the blue: “There’s no fresh impact at first glance. How about moving the front window touchdown position (windshield’s lowest point) forward 100mm?” From my Toyota experience, production 4-door sedan model changes moved glass touchdown at most 5-10mm, sometimes not at all. A sudden 100mm advance in one model change seemed honestly impossible. But this was Chrysler Corp.’s design VP speaking—a company led by design. Ultimately, this second-generation Neon’s glass touchdown moved forward 75mm even in production.

I realized that creating innovative designs within a corporate organization depends not just on designers’ creativity, but largely on how that creativity is utilized and directed.

Opportunity comes

About two and a half years after starting at Chrysler Corp. in May 1994, having transferred from Advanced to Chrysler brand production car development and finally adapting to working methods here, my first major opportunity arrived.

In the 1990s, Chrysler Corp. had four brand sales channels: Chrysler, Dodge, Plymouth, and Jeep, presenting concept cars for each brand at North America’s largest auto show, Detroit’s NAIAS (North American International Auto Show), held every early January. Since the early 90s, the Chrysler brand had annually presented prestigious luxury passenger cars symbolizing the brand.

Top-down word came to create a sequel prestige car for January 1998. What surprised me again was the packaging: vehicle dimensions including length and height were entirely at designers’ discretion. Only two constraints existed: mount a large V10 gasoline engine befitting the Chrysler brand, and keep the wheelbase within 131 inches to fit the turntable newly acquired for displaying show cars.

Such freedom can be paralyzing, but numerous concept cars created by senior designers existed as references. Fortunately, researching Chrysler Corp.’s history, I found photos of a 1953 concept car called the Chrysler D’Elegance.

Its composed presence, long nose seemingly housing a large engine, and minimally compact cabin—everything matched this concept car’s requirements. So I began sketching, thinking “I’ll revive this D’Elegance as the 20th century’s final prestige car.” With FF passenger cars mainstream then, featuring short noses, cab-forward long cabins, naturally drawing long-nose, compact-cabin proportions proved difficult. But observing other studio designers’ drawings, I gradually mastered rather exaggerated, over-proportioned sketches.

About a year after project start, it was unveiled as the “Chrysler Chronos” at the January 1998 NAIAS, covered by Japanese automotive media and various magazines. Most unforgettably, “Car Styling issue 123″—which I’d read like a bible since aspiring to car design—featured not just the concept car photo but my design rendering on its cover—truly unforgettable excitement.