On the first day after the holiday, Changan Automobile parachuted a foreign executive. Former global design leader of Volkswagen Group and world-renowned automotive designerKlaus Cicciora, officially serves as Vice President of Changan Automobile, responsible for Changan Automobile's global design. This position is quite high, and you may be unfamiliar with this "foreigner", but you must be familiar with the cars he designed and have even driven them.
For example, Volkswagen’s global best-selling model, the Golf, was designed from the 5th to 8th generations by Klaus Cicciola. That’s why people also call him “father of golf".
He has also led or participated in the design of Passat, Beetle, Volkswagen ID. series and other models, and even participated in the product design of Bugatti Veyron.
Source: Volkswagen
The purpose of Changan inviting such a big man to join is obvious. It can not only improve product design with Klaus Cicciola's rich experience, but also learn from Klaus Cicciola's wisdom.Global design concept, accelerating international layout.
In fact, there are precedents for Chinese car companies to invite foreign designers to build cars, and many of them have been very successful, such as Pierre, the original design director of Wei brand, and Wolfgang Egger, who gave BYD a new car a new look.
After all, apart from technology, most people still buy cars based on their eyesight. However, judging from the current models that are selling well, many excellent designs are made by foreigners.
When will the Chinese design their own cars entirely on their own?
01
From Volkswagen to Chang'an
Klaus Cicciora was born in Hamburg, Germany, in December 1961. He is 62 years old this year.
1989, he officially joined Volkswagen as an interior designer. 11 years later, Cicciola was promoted to head of Volkswagen’s interior design. By 2002, Klaus Cicciola shifted from "inside" to "outside" and began to be responsible for Volkswagen's exterior design until he was promoted toVolkswagen Global Design Head, and stayed in this position for 12 years.
Source: Changan Automobile
Most of Cicciola's career of more than 30 years has been at Volkswagen. During his 30 years at Volkswagen, Cicciola has participated in and been responsible for the design of many global hot-selling models and star models, including but not limited to Golf, Bugatti Veyron, redesigned Beetle, etc.
He even designed it himself"Four generations of popular family-style design product series”, leading the design of the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth generation golf, which also made the golf a best-selling classic car in the world. The simple and practical design has become the object of learning for many later models.
Cicciola has not only designed many fuel vehicles, but also designed the ID. series of new energy models and the Audi e-tron series of models.
At the beginning of 2020, Klaus Cicciola becameGlobal Head of Design, Volkswagen Group, responsible for the design work of 12 brands under Volkswagen.
Source: Changan Automobile
As an automotive designer who has been working for many years, Cicciola has won a series of awards in the global design field, such as the famous German award that all designers dream of.red dot design award, Cicciola and his team have won many awards for various models such as Golf, Beetle, Passat, etc.
He has also served as a jury for the German iF Product Design Award (iF Industrie Forum Design), a judge for the CDN International Automotive Design Competition, and has won the Best Design Award from the well-known German automotive magazine "AutoBild" many times.
Source: Changan Automobile
It can be said that Klaus Cicciola plays an important role in the automotive design world. Joining Changan is also the first "job change" for this design master who is over 60 years old after working in the industry for many years.
For a top designer, a new design is no less than reinventing a car brand. After joining Changan, how to build a set for Changan?A new design language, is the biggest issue he faces. We can also look forward to the design of Changan's next-generation products.
02
The strongest assistants in those years
Although the sales of a car cannot be determined solely by its appearance, the fact is that if a car is ugly in design, it will be difficult for you to be interested in understanding its core.
No matter how powerful the smart driving promotion is and how luxurious the materials are, it is still not as good-looking and impactful as one that looks good. After all, people highly recognize beautiful things, and the same goes for cars.
To say that the most obvious effect of introducing strong foreign aid is that of BYD, the new domestic independent brand.
In 2016, BYD hired the former Audi design directorWolfgang Josef Egger, serves as BYD's global design director.
Like Klaus Cicciola, Wolfgang Josef Egger also started working in 1989, when he joined the Alfa Romeo brand and became Alfa Romeo at the age of 30.Chief Designer.
Source: AUDI
Later, he also served as the design director of Seat and Lancia. In 2007, he began to serve as the design director of Audi. He once led the development of Audi TT, Audi R8, Audi A3, Audi A6, Audi Q7 and other models, as well as the design of Lamborghini brand models. Participating in the design of so many classic models is enough to enter the supreme palace of top car designers.
At the 2017 Shanghai Auto Show, Wolfgang Egger made his debut with the "Dynasty Concept Car", his first work after taking over BYD. This car draws inspiration from the Chinese "dragon" element and has a highly recognizable "dragon face" shape. At that time, this car shocked everyone when it debuted, and has since formed the unique "dragon face" of BYD's new cars.DragonFace"Design language.
Source: BYD
There were many opinions that it was Wolfgang Josef Egger's new design that made theBYD is reborn. Now BYD's two major systems, Dynasty and Ocean, are the inheritance of DragonFace design language.
Not only BYD, but also Great Wall has been able to rise with the help of "the strongest support".
While working at Great Wall Motors,Former BMW chief designer Pierre Leclercq, has completed the styling design of VV7, VV6 and VV5 models.
Source: BMW
At that time, the front face of the VV series could be said to be quite capable, and it is still not outdated even now. It was the emergence of WEY that led Great Wall to change its original brand image and start to hit the high-end.
Before joining Great Wall Motors, Pierre Leclercq worked as a designer for brands such as Zagato, Ford and BMW.
While working at BMW, he successively completed the styling design of BMW X5 and X6 models, and was subsequently promoted from senior exterior designer to BMW chief designer, responsible for leading the design work of BMW M series models. During the period of leading the M series, X5M and X6M were his proud works.
Source: BMW
But it is a pity that Great Wall Motors was not able to retain this design master in 2017. In 2018, Great Wall Motors spent a lot of money to hire another general.Former design director of Land Rover——Phil Simmons.
In addition to the above, too many domestic car companies have already begun to seek talents. For example, Stephen Silaf, who served as Vice President of Global Design of Geely Automobile Group, once dominated the design of Volkswagen Europe, Audi, and Mercedes-Benz, and brought Geely the MPV model Ji Krypton 009.
Source: Geely Automobile
Hongqi Motors also introduced former Rolls-Royce design director Giles Taylor, and the first product he brought was the Hongqi L-Concept concept car unveiled at the Shanghai Auto Show two years ago.
03
Chinese designers come running
More than ten years ago, domestically produced cars did not have many original designs, and many car companies had indeed left.”Copycat" shortcut.
In the early days of Geely Automobile, because Li Shufu was obsessed with the design of Mercedes-Benz models, the Haoqing, Meiri, and Unio models successively launched from 1998 to 2002 were all full of Mercedes-Benz design elements.
Among those who have brought plagiarism and copying to the forefront are Zhongtai. Wu Jianzhong, former chairman of Zotye Motors, once publicly stated, “Zotyy Motors uses the ‘Use doctrine’, achieving rapid development by introducing foreign models and technologies is a major feature of Zotye Automobile’s integrated operations. "
The most impressive slogan at that time was, I heard you wanted to drive a Porsche, so I came. .
With the "tape measure department", Zotye has had a highlight experience.Zotye SR9 imitates Porsche Macan, claiming to have received orders for 20,000 vehicles on the day it was launched, achieving sales of more than 5,000 vehicles in a single month.
Source: Internet
In 2015, Zotye launched the Zotye T600, which copied the design elements of Volkswagen and Audi. The sales of this car reached 120,000 units in 2015. Relying on the Zotye T600 and Zotye SR9, Zotye's sales increased by 50% year-on-year in 2016, reaching 333,100 units.
Not only Zotye, many independent brands have also begun to set up "tape measure part"At that time, the design level of car companies was far from being in line with international standards, and they even did not have their own design team in the early days of their establishment.
It is precisely because of this development process that a deep-rooted concept has formed in China - imported cars are better than joint venture cars, and joint venture cars are better than domestically produced cars.
Fortunately, Chinese brands have begun to pay attention to original design. In order to make up for the shortcomings in appearance, many car companies have spent a lot of money to hire international masters to join the design team.
Source: BYD
It is said that foreign monks can ring bells. After welcoming these overseas designers who are good at dancing, Chinese brand models finally have their own "family style"Front face. And usually, the salary of hiring these overseas designers is much higher than that of European and American companies, but it turns out that the effect is still very good.
In 2019, the "Wall Street Journal" published a report-"Chinese cars are still cheap, but they're no longer ugly”, saying that the models of Chinese brands have always been cheap and ugly, but with the joining of foreign designers, the appearance of Chinese cars has begun to transform.
Unfortunately, current Chinese car companies lack experience in making high-end models, and it is difficult to train their own designers, so they still have to rely on the power of "foreigners" during this period.
Of course, some car companies are very bold, such as Tesla, which established aDesign R&D Center, recruiting local design talents, saying that it will build a "Chinese style" Tesla. Audi, Honda, etc. have begun to use Chinese designers in the field of electrification.
Next, let’s see who can design a pure Chinese car.