Interesting interview CarConnection did with Peter Horbury. Peter Horbury is responsible for the new look of Volvo cars.
The affable, soft-spoken Horbury is a native of the United Kingdom, and a graduate of the Royal College of Art. At 53, he is credited with penning more than 45 cars, trucks, buses, and motorcycles over the course of a three-decade career. But it's the eleven years Horbury spent as design director of Volvo Car Corp. that earned him his current reputation. Long known for its boxy designs, Horbury and his team rolled out an assortment of sedans, coupes, and wagons that maintained what designers like to call "brand DNA," yet proved Volvos could be stylish, as well as safe.
Ford Motor Co. design director J Mays explained Horbury's move to the U.S. by noting that North America is "where we need to invest our top design talent. We are more heavily investing in refining the design DNA for this market's products." For a sense of exactly what that means, TheCarConnection.com spent a day driving with Horbury through New England in the new Mercury Mariner.
TCC: Ford has taken a lot of hits for the conservative design of the Five Hundred, compared to competitors like Chrysler, with its stylish 300. Is that fair?
HORBURY: If you walk into the room playing a trumpet, everyone will pay attention, but after a while, they all get sick of the noise.
TCC: So, are you saying you're comfortable with Ford's conservative designs?
HORBURY: There's a fine line in a business like ours. Every project has to have a good business case and that comes from making a vehicle last six to eight years. Anything that's a fashion statement has, by definition, a short shelf life. The fine line is between something that is outstandingly new and intense and something that can keep going long enough to make a business case. The Swedish rules of design call for keeping it clean and simple, like good Swedish furniture. If you keep it simple, it doesn't get dated. It's balancing all that which I feel we have to do.
TCC: So you don't want to design cutting edge cars?
HORBURY: I hope I'm never accused of designing a boring car, but there's a lot riding on it. It's become more and more difficult as brand loyalty becomes a thing of the past. People want something new. The critical thing is to find a way to keep people's interest (in your products) longer than they want to have.
TCC: So, then, risking the fact that your answer could get you fired, would you have done the Five Hundred differently?
HORBURY: I think… (a very long pause follows) …every chief designer would approach a problem in a different way. I don't think any two would do it the same way. It's obvious I wouldn't design it like that, but I admire what's come out. Would have done it differently? No doubt, but I still like the car.
TCC: Part of J Mays' focus has been on interior refinement, something that seems to be increasingly important in the industry these days. Do you agree?
HORBURY: What I'm trying to do is (focus on) the perceived value. It's important because we have the right way to make a judgment where $5 in savings may represent $200 less in perceived value in the customer's eye. Putting in that extra $5 could prove to be a pretty good investment.
TCC: Perhaps, but in an industry that would kill to save 30 cents per vehicle, isn't that a difficult thing to sell?
HORBURY: It's one of the most difficult things to argue because it's clearly a subjective argument. But when I hear people say, "The customer won't notice," well, the customer notices everything. And the fact is that good design really doesn't cost more than mediocre design. That's why every single detail needs to be addressed.
TCC: Interiors are one of those areas that long seem to have neglected.
HORBURY: J has blazed the path for interiors. Just look at the F-150 (full-size pickup). Who would have expected an interior that refined in a truck just five years ago?
TCC: We're seeing the expansion of what used to define luxury, especially in interiors, with the use of new materials besides wood and leather.
HORBURY: What is luxury? It's a word that's changing fast. Traditional definitions of luxury changed with my generation. We created our own sense of style. And there's the new generation of luxury buyers. They have a lot of buying power, and want luxury, but not the same sort of luxury as the generation before. But we don't want to write off the last generation, so what we have to do is often appeal to both. That means leather and wood for some, and brushed aluminum for others.
TCC: You mention the next generation. Do you intend to focus on younger buyers?
HORBURY: There's a never-ending quest among car companies to win over younger buyers. But let's face it: who has the money?
TCC: What's the biggest difference between working at Volvo and at Ford?
HORBURY: Dealing with the Swedes taught me how to encourage people to be creative without being dictatorial. In Sweden, it was about discussing, about encouraging our designers to come back with the solution themselves. (In the U.S.) it's a culture change. That hasn't been the way to do it. In the States, people expect to either be left alone or told what to do. I believe we'll come to some point in the middle.
TCC: One of the things you discover visiting Volvo is the emphasis on computer technology used for design and engineering. How much of a difference did it make?
HORBURY: At Volvo, we changed the whole way of working from handcraft-based to digital. With the S40, everything was done on-screen. We walked into the digital display room one day to look at several different concepts and we decided we wanted to take the front end off one car and (mate it to) the back end of another. We could do that in just 10 minutes. Imagine if we'd done that with clay models. We'd not have been done until three weeks later.
TCC: How far is the technology going?
HORBURY: I had a hologram of an instrument panel in my office two weeks ago, and I had to keep reminding myself not to try to grab the steering wheel.
