June 20, 2003 - This year’s Eyes on Design Automotive Design Exhibit will present 75 years of GM Design at the General Motors Technical Center in Warren, Michigan on June 22. The event will open with a brunch presentation by Wayne Cherry, GMs fifth head of design. It is expected that the name of the sixth may be announced during the presentations, and in this series of articles we are celebrating the five men who have carried GMs very distinct design torch, and have contributed to a remarkable consistency. The current keeper of the flame, Wayne Cherry, will be remembered as the one who led GM design in to a new millennium.

The danger is of course, and that would be very unjust, that the historians will regard the current epoch as the Bob Lutz age. When Automotive News, Wards and the other trade magazines writes that “Lutz restructures Design and Development” it could of course reflect negatively on Cherry and his team, especially when it is added that Cherry will lead the realigned design organisation and report directly to Lutz.

Sounds like GM suddenly has got a new design boss, whereas the reality seems to be that Lutz, the human dynamo, managed to unfurl and discard a lot of red tape that had been corporate-induced, helped by North America boss Ron Zarella (who since left fairly abruptly). There were seven different Brand Management Studios and job titles no one on the outside understood, like 'Director of Design Brand Character' – sounds more like corporate management than free flowing creative forces. And establishing fascinating departments with names like Advanced Portfolio Exploration Area (beats Toyota with their 'Product Design Department 12'). Industrial spies, despair! The design organisation has been streamlined and the design process is easily monitored again. Now a team of five executive directors – all of whom report to Cherry – oversee interior design, quality and brand character; unibody architecture design; body-on-frame architecture design; advanced vehicle design; and vehicle architecture.

In addition to some great designs Wayne Cherry should, and hopefully will, be remembered for introducing advanced computer tools in car design. Good or bad – it’s there, and to such a degree that he was the first to have the Alias|Wavefront Portfolio Wall (an interactive large screen display) installed. In the good old days a design boss could walk through the studios and get a feeling of what his people were up to just by looking at the sketches or clay models. How do you do that when nearly all work is done on computers? Cherry and the other design managers can just flick on the large interactive plasma screen and review, present, and discuss everything there, both 2D and 3D models.

More significant was that he broke the NIH-mold. “Not Invented Here“ was the credo, which vetoed absolutely (nearly) any hiring from competitors. GM would happily export designers to other manufacturers, but their own people were industrial virgins when they entered Tech Center. Cherry changed all that. He hired established talent from Chrysler, from Renault, from Audi, from Fiat. Anne Asensio, Peter Davis, Simon Cox, Bryan Nesbitt, Simon Cox, Martin Smith just to mention recent arrivals. He even re-hired: some who had deserted to competitors were actually welcomed back. Frank Saucedo is one of those. When counted in the middle of 2001, it was found that he had hired more than a hundred designers in just over a year!

Wayne Cherry will also be remembered (or will not) because of a personal trait. He can compete with Irv Rybicki in being the least (outwardly at least) forceful of GMs five design directors. And especially in these days when designers are becoming the motor industry’s pop stars, media darlings, a man with a Bob Lutz personality gets much more exposure than a fairly low key Wayne Cherry whose one-liners are just that.

The fact that he grabbed the concept car crown back from Chrysler will, however, be a big part of his reputation. Dream Cars were a GM invention. You may call them Concepts, but the idea behind them has not changed since Earls pre-war Y-Job. Concepts were also the Detroit Auto Show’s main reason for existing – at least as an international event. Chrysler ruled that scene for many years, but with the October 1999 presentation, simultaneously in Europe and USA, of the digital concept cars he was going to present in metal at the 2000 show, Wayne Cherry took the initiative back, and never relinquished it again. 35 concept cars since that day and not a few growing into real production cars, that must surely be some kind of industry record.

In 2000 he also opened a new Advanced Studio in Los Angeles after the old one in Newbury Park had been out of commission for many years. The Birmingham Advanced Studio had already been operating since 1998.

He has actually demonstrated impressive showmanship these last years, culminating with this year’s Cadillac Sixteen which prompted Ford’s J Mays to congratulate Cherry with: “It’s the best damn piece of work to come out of GM styling since Bill Mitchell’s days.” That should be filed under “What-kind-of-compliment-is-that?”

But it should be remembered that accomplished concepts had been a Cherry trademark since his European days. Vauxhall SRV (1970) and the Equus (1978) as well as a long line of Opel Concepts, for instance the Opel Tech 1 on which the 1984 Kadett was based, are excellent examples of what this man helped create.

Wayne Cherry took over the vice president, Design, post from Chuck Jordan on November 1 1992, and should have retired when he turned 65 last year. Instead he was asked by Bob Lutz again – according to all reports from this year’s Detroit Show – to stay another year. Rumours were rife as to the reason, for instance that J Mays or Peter Horbury did not accept, but in January Cherry said that his successor was chosen, but he would not divulge who it would be.

Cherry, Indianapolis born and Art Center educated, joined GM in 1962, as Associate Creative Designer. He moved to England in 1965, worked at Vauxhall/Bedford where he became Director of Design (for Vauxhall) in March 1971, and for the complete line, Bedford trucks and Vauxhall passenger cars, in June 1975. That was when he impressed me, and I have had a soft spot for the man ever since, when he gave me a long, interesting interview, which very soon became a speech about “Trucks deserve design too, and I’d be happy to oblige”. All great designers – Patrick le Quement, Uwe Bahnsen, Steve Harper or Geoff Upex, to name just a few – have all given me interesting views on unsexy themes like truck design. That he also established the “Droop snoop Club” thanks to some very aerodynamic treatment of special edition Vauxhalls, should be enough to vote him a member of the European enthusiast’s Hall of Fame.

Then he went on to become Director of Design at the Opel/Vauxhall Technical Development Center in Rüsselsheim (which gave him a de facto responsibility for all European GM design) in June 1983. He led a reorganization of Opel’s studio structure, with a larger facility, and new processes including Alias math-based design systems. His team helped bring GM Europe into first place with a number of notable vehicles, including the 1983 Opel Junior concept, which inspired the future Corsa, the 1987 and 1994 Omega, 1992 Calibra coupe and 1996 Tigra.

He was called back to the States in September 1991, first as executive designer for Chevrolet, Geo and GM of Canada, which does not sound as a promotion, but he must have known at the time that this would be a year’s grooming.

One final appreciation: I don’t know for sure, but I suspect that he has been instrumental in the painstaking, sensitive, nearly reverent restoration of the original Tech Center buildings. On June 22 the general public can enjoy one of the very rare views of Eero Saarinen’s great design. Maybe even the doors to Cherry’s own office will be opened, with space defined by sweeping curves, flowing forms and changing surfaces, rather like a car’s body. Furniture is built in a way that suggests the old fashioned way of constructing wooden bucket forms and the glass table can be moved upwards hydraulically. Even the “teacup” the receptionist’s fibreglass desk, are maintained down to the smallest, playful detail.

Today the Tech Center is placed on the National Register of Historical Places, and GM plans to open a visitor’s center here, maybe when the original 25 buildings (today there are 37 in total) can celebrate 50 years in 2006. Even if he had nothing else to be remembered by, this would have been a worthy epitaph. Happily that is not the case, Wayne Cherry has much more to his name.