Top Car

INSIDER.

Geely design bossPeter Horburytalks

upthe Chinese company’s range and his

new taxi for London(whiletalking downthe

useofVolvo’s parts bin)

‘Copyi ngisover

inChina.

Companieshave

properdesign

departmentsnow’

The TOPCAR Inquisition

Tell usaboutyour

first car...

‘It was aRenault 4L

boughtwhenI was a

studentatthe Royal

College ofArt. The L

stoodfor “lousy”. I had

a limit ofa few hundred

pounds andfoundit in

theEvening Standard

newspaper.

Which

achievement

makes youmost

proud?

‘Havingthe ambition

from theage of six

orseven tobecome

a car designer and

actually getting there.

I rememberat my

grammarschool

careers night saying,

“I wanttobea car

designer”andmy

teacher replying,

“Have you thought

about insurance? Cars

needinsurance.” But

I wenttoart school

andin 19 74 walkedinto

Chrysler’s Whitley

studio –now Jaguar’s

• and started workon
  the Horizon model. Idid
  the bumper, grille and
  lamps.’
  What’s the best

TOPCAR’S CURVEBALLS

6 questionsonly wewouldask...

D

ESPITE CONFESSINGTHAThe’s old enough to

qualify for a bus pass, 65-year-old Peter Horbury

shows no signs of qu itting. After a distinguished

career at Ford and two stints as Volvo design boss –

including du ring the influential ’90s when he

redefined the ‘boxy’ brand, courtesy of a pronounced shoulder

line and strong, smooth lines on the first-gener ation S80, S

and C70 – he ended up back in Sweden in 2009 just before

Chinese upstart Geely decided to bu y the brand. Moving swiftly

to design senior vice president for the Geely Grou p in 2011, he’s

spen t the last four years putting fire under the brand’s ambitions.

‘It’s a whole new challenge and so much fun,’ he enthuses,

‘becausethere was no brand identity before, no design

department. My job is to design the next wave of cars but my

even bigger job is to bring up a whole new ge neration of Geely

designers capable of taking that momentum into the future.’

Now boasting a team of 320 people he ’s busy making sure

design is at the heart of Geely’s car-making process. ‘To get acar

into production takes an awful lot morethan doing a sket ch and

maybe a clay and giving them to an

engineer. That’s what Geely did in

the past. All the inevitable changes

were done by an engineer who hadn’t

really got the same eye or approach.

Now we have to sh ow howdesign

and engineering work to gether in a

way that doesn’t lose the design

intent. That’s as much a part of the

education of the company as it is the

young designers.’

So pres umably there’ll be no more

copycat designs from Geely – like the

awful 2009 GE concept that sullied

the Rolls-Royce Phantom? ‘It’s a

stra nge phenomenon,’ concedes

Horbury. ‘Confucian teaching said

that the master knew everything and

the apprentice had to learn

everything the master knew before

thing you’vedone

in a car?

‘Taking myFordGT

onto the Falkenberg

track inSwedenwith

a professional driver

toshowmethe ropes.

Finding out where the

limitsare,oractually

not finding out where

the limitsare,was

fantastic. Istill own it.’

Tell ushow you

screwed up...

[Laughs] Dear, dear,

me...everycar design

has atleast one

mistake,or one thing

that couldhavebeen

done better. Onthe

1994 Volvo 960 facelift

the front bumper

seemstobefalling off.

Thatsidefeature line

rubbing-stripstill really

gratesonme.

Supercar or

classic?

I buyClassic Cars

magazine, soI can

choosea different

classic everymonth and

not actually buy one.

Didyouknow

aboutGeely

founder Li ShuFu’s

unusual poetry-

writing hobby?

Yes,heoncesentme

a poemhe’dwritten

about the moon. It

was translated very

well intoEnglish.He’s

completely different

fromany other boss

I’vepreviously had...