Detroit Is Still the Capital of American Auto Design

While General Motors has set up an advanced design studio in Southern California, virtually all of its design work on upcoming models going into production in the near future is still being performed at its main design center, located in GM’s sprawling, campus-like technical center in Warren, Mich., a Detroit suburb.

Established in September, 1983, GM’s Advanced Concepts Center in Thousand Oaks instead concentrates primarily on avant-garde design concepts in trends, some of which are later incorporated into the designs of cars going into production. Most notably, the California studio has designed a prototype Chevrolet Camaro that is expected to heavily influence future design of sports cars.

The GM center in Thousand Oaks, now run by longtime GM designer John Schinella, is just one of several satellite design studios set up by the major American and Japanese auto makers in the region to take advantage of creative trends on the West Coast.

But for the most part, the basic design work on production cars is still being done in Detroit for the Big Three and in Tokyo for the Japanese.