Design Transfusion for Chevy
General Motors’ Chevrolet division--which used to call itself “The Heartbeat of America”--is turning to a 32-year-old designer to boost the pulse of its cars.
Sure, he’s young, but Bryan Nesbitt already has scored a hit that will probably go down as a classic, even an icon: the PT Cruiser for his previous employer, Chrysler.
With demand still running high for the 16-month-old PT--not to mention Chrysler’s reputation for giving its designers a long leash, and in the end producing the vehicles they come up with--why would Nesbitt want to leave?
“It comes down to I’m a car designer. Who doesn’t want to design more cars?” said Nesbitt, who joined Chevrolet in May as brand character chief designer. “This is a much bigger boat, with much bigger profits. Chevy is such a great brand; I think the opportunity is unparalleled.”
So are the challenges.
Chevrolet, GM’s biggest division, sold one in four cars and trucks in the U.S. market in the mid-1970s. Its market share has since fallen to 15% as drivers flocked to imports and Chevy’s passenger-car lineup grew more and more bland. Cars that prompted admiring gazes and inspired passion (think Corvette and Camaro) gave way to models generally viewed as nondescript (Cavalier, Lumina, Malibu).
“Chevy cars don’t have visual cues. There is a lack of identity on the car side,” Nesbitt said of the brand he is inheriting. “We want a significant vision. If the brand reflects American culture, and the culture is individualistic, then that’s what the brand should reflect.
“People want equal doses of individuality and functionalism, and that’s really difficult,” he said in a recent interview. “Nobody wants a four-door Corvette.”
So Nesbitt has his work cut out as he sets about to breathe life into the passenger-car side of Chevrolet while proving he is more than a one-hit wonder.
“I think the biggest challenge for him is interiors,” said Greg Salchow, an auto analyst with Raymond James & Co. in Detroit. “They’ve gone overboard in cost cutting and have very cheap-looking interiors. Their mass-market cars just scream ‘cheap’ on the inside.”
Nesbitt must try to re-create the excitement of Chevy cars of 30 or more years ago, Salchow said, suggesting that “he’ll want to have more Corvettes and less Impalas.”
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General Motors in recent months has been picking up high-profile hires at the top of the executive ranks, notably former Ford Chief Financial Officer John Devine as GM’s new CFO and former Chrysler Vice Chairman Robert Lutz as head of the General’s product development.
Further down the food chain, GM has been courting and hiring designers from rival auto makers, even on other continents. Nesbitt reports to Anne Asensio, who is responsible for setting GM’s overall design tone and herself was head-hunted from Renault of France.
With the bull’s-eye he scored as the PT Cruiser’s chief designer, Nesbitt probably could have moved anywhere he wanted.
But consider Audi, one of the hottest brands in the country today and one that Nesbitt admires.
“Young guys already did the TT,” he said, referring to its much-admired coupe and roadster line. “Audi has the aspiration and great brand identity. Where’s the challenge? It doesn’t have to be redone.
“Chevy is a more honest challenge. The opportunity to be part of this team that communicates its desires to change--that’s the challenge.”
The jump from trendy Chrysler to stodgy Chevrolet makes sense to Jim Hall, a Detroit-based vice president of industry consultant AutoPacific and himself a former automotive design student at Art Center in Pasadena.
“He’s got a bigger box of toys to use, plain and simple. Chrysler has an interesting portfolio of cars, but Chevrolet does everything,” Hall said. “He’s going to influence cars that aren’t out yet.”
Nesbitt, a native of Phoenix, studied at Georgia Tech and Art Center, which has turned out a steady stream of top auto designers, including Nesbitt’s ultimate boss, GM Vice President for Design Wayne Cherry.
“When you think of the North American market, you’re competing with the best products in the world,” Cherry said. “Bryan is a very knowledgeable young man about the industry and the brand.” Cherry acknowledges that the roaring success of the PT Cruiser put Nesbitt on GM’s radar scope.
“The design business globally is extremely competitive,” he said. “Any department, any function, you’re always looking for the best of the best to build your team with a broad base and global perspective.”
Chevrolet already has begun remaking itself. Its large pickups and large and mid-size sport-utility vehicles are relatively new and have eaten significantly into Ford Motor’s overall truck market share.
The SSR--a new hot rod, roadster and pickup truck in one--is coming out next year as well, promising to breathe new life into the Chevy brand.
“Chevrolet is attainable aspiration. It can be conveyed through a car, a full-size truck or a concept vehicle,” Nesbitt said, gesturing to the Chevy Borrego before slipping into flowery design-speak. “It meets needs but doesn’t violate the indulgence of owning a vehicle.”
The Borrego is a good example of such justified indulgence, he said. Built off a Subaru Legacy platform--GM owns 20% of Fuji Heavy Industries, parent of the Japanese brand--the Borrego is a low-slung, all-wheel-drive car-cum-pickup that Chevy and Subaru put together as a concept car.
“Baja California meets rally car,” in Nesbitt’s shorthand.
GM and Subaru executives note that the Borrego is not for production, but its concept of a crossover vehicle--a combination of two traditional sectors, in this case sedan and pickup--is something that will play a big role in Chevy’s, and Nesbitt’s, future.
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Part of Nesbitt’s job will be to make buyers feel they are getting more for their money.
“People want to spend $20,000 but want their car to look like $40,000,” he said. “So how to communicate that?”
Nesbitt’s own favorite cars? A couple by Chevy (the ’67 Camaro and the ’63 split-window Corvette Sting Ray) as well as the modern-day Porsche Boxster.
“I got a lot of my imprints from my family, mostly Firebirds and Corvettes,” he said. “We didn’t have a four-door family car growing up.”
That might be a good place for him to start. Sales of the Malibu, GM’s top-selling four-door in 2000, are down 15% thus far this year. The Impala, though considered unremarkable in design, has turned in a more promising performance, its sales rising 9% this year in a contracting market.
“The Impala really is a value car and meets its objectives pretty well,” Nesbitt said. “Look at the challenge of where we have to go, with Japanese loyalty. Can we do a sedan that does more?”
He said he is not out to reproduce the PT Cruiser for Chevrolet, although he notes that there may be a place in the division for retro design--or as it’s called in Detroit, “heritage” design.
Chevy has enough variety--or “bandwidth,” as he puts it--that “you can immerse in lots of opportunities.”
“And if some are heritage, I don’t think that violates the brand,” he said, shaking his head vigorously. “It depends on what objectives are there, but if heritage complements the brand, then absolutely.”
But even though you might be able to take the Nesbitt out of Chrysler, you can’t take all the Chrysler out of Nesbitt: He still has his own black PT Cruiser, slightly lowered with modified wheels, at home.
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Terril Yue Jones is The Times’ Detroit bureau chief. He can be reached at t.jones@latimes.com.
