Exclusive: Gerry McGovern speaks

[Music] Hello and welcome to the AutoCarp podcast My Weekend Cars with Pry here. Copy that, hello Steven. Hello mate, hello to the game. Very good mate, very good. This podcast is brought to you listening in association with our sponsor, [email protected] to see their full range of electric charges. Premium design focused as they are. This week, Steven and I are going to be at the Norton factory to talk to Jerry McGowan. That's a good thing to do, isn't it? Yeah, think about how many times his names come up in recent, you know, in past months. A quick run through of his career to date then, I suppose, he was at MG Rover even in the 90s. Yeah, he was educated, I believe, he educated in Coventry. Went to a design school, he was interested in all sorts of things. Architecture, product design, got just by chance met Roy Axe who was a car designer of some fame who eventually went to Rover Group, I think. Took Jerry with him, Jerry is involved in the design of the MGF. And the MG exe, lovely, remember the concept car? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the first free lander. And then he buzzed off to America for a while, worked for Lincoln, I think. Toward and Lincoln. Then came back to Land Rover where he very much made his reputation, you know, and I think he did something like three generations of Range Rover Sport, two generations of Range Rover, the discovery and the defender, of course, the new defender. And then, of course, he was made overall JLR design guru and was involved with the concept 0, 0 Jaguar, the car that is still controversial and we still haven't seen in production form. And then has been involved with Norton for a little while, even while he was at JLR, and then his time at JLR came to a, how to describe it, controversial end. Yeah, we did not quite the white word as it, but somehow sort of, you know, an end. Yeah, there were all these stories about him being sort of escorted out, but in fact, he, me, explains it quite well on the part, doesn't he, in fact, you know, in a minute or two, he's going to explain to us how it happened. I mean, it's very much his version of events, but he, you know, he's, as he says, and as the official announcement said, he left on good terms. He still drives around in a Range Rover. Well, he arrived in an octa defender, so, you know, see, it can't be that bad. No, so, yeah. Right, well, thanks for joining us. Here is the interview. I'm delighted to say that Steve and I are joined by Professor Jeremy Governer OBE, Chief Creative Advisor at Norton. Jerry, welcome to the show. Thank you. Steve, lead us in me. Well, Jerry, it's so great to talk to you quite a lot's happened. In the last, since we, we spoke probably 18 months or something ago, I don't know. You know, lots of ups and downs, lots of people filled in dots that weren't there. So, what we thought we would do is come around and see you in your new environment at Norton, where you are, as Matt says. Well, it's not a new environment, I'll be, if he is. Well, yeah. You do us. Sorry to make it up. But tell us what you were last seen at JLR. The JLR was in a, in the, the throws of revealing an important new jaguar. What happened? What, why? Well, I mean, I think, you know, there's a, there's a lot of things been written. There was a lot of disinformation out there. You know, I'd been the real, and, you know, it came out in the, the formal announcements about me leaving, which was that, you know, I decided that I wanted to move on, and I wanted to try other things. You know, I'd been at JLR for 20, 24 years, something like that. I'm very proud of what I did there and with, with the teams. I had a great time there. There was some, you know, we did some great stuff. But there comes a point where, how long can you go on going through those, you know, I'd done so many generations of, I think three generations of Range Rover Sport, two generations of Range Rover, two generations, sorry, three generations if you vote, two generations Range Rover Sport, two generations of Range Rover, you know, the new Defender, which was three, all of those things, it was a lot. And, and then with the Jaguar, it was always in my mind, I'll have a go at Jaguar, and then when that's done, I want to go on to other chapters. And I'll be talking to the company about it for quite a while. So it was a sort of, it was a natural progression for me. I just think maybe, I don't know what went on with all sorts of rumours or whatever, speculation, but it was all pretty inaccurate. It was quite, I wouldn't say it was amusing, but it was interesting, interesting to watch. Have you put, is that, you feel you've put that stuff behind, you know? Yeah, yeah, I mean, I've moved on and, you know, I wish, you know, JLR, but I've lost, I love those, Brad, you can't walk away from them. When I still see a Range Rover on the road, when I'm in London, I see all these Defenders, and I think, you know, 20 years ago when we were talking about Defender, being in the urban environment, I used to get laughed at, you know, in the same way, you know, you couldn't call an evoker Range Rover, or, you know, you see, it's that thing about Defender, it started off in the jungle, and that's in the urban jungle. The same with Range Rover, so those brands are really dear to my heart. I'm still very passionate about them, and I just, you know, I just wish them. Always will be, I suppose. Yeah, they always, they always will be. Have you got, do you drive around in anything like that? Of course, I mean, the company was very good to me, and I have, I mean, I've got a Defender Opta, and I have two at the moment, but I could have a Range Rover or whatever, so yeah, I don't walk away from it, and, you know, I'll be observing what they're doing, and send it them notes when I think they need advice or whatever, it's, it's all, it was very unicable. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, but you had, by the time, you know, that you, you walked away, as you say, you, you had a route here at Norton for really some years, and you told us about that. Yeah, because, you know, the company, it was, I met Soudishan Venom and his father, because in India, the venue is the surname of the, and it's a Christian name, the surname is slightly confusing, but I met them these are the bosses of TVS. These are the OBS TVS, yeah, and I met them through Mr. Tata, and these to come to the studio at Gaden, because of very big supporters of the JLR brands, I mean, they've got lots and lots of Range Rovers, Defenders, and Venu, the father, he, you know, he's on, he was on the TV, on the JLR, not the JLR, the Tata Board of Trustees, there's a lot of connections there, and I started helping, they asked for some advice selecting architects, because that was one of my interests as well, architectural design, in fact, we're working with Foster and Partners, now as a consequence of Soudishan, it started with that, and then it went on to other things, and I was with Soudishan, in fact, the night that he told me that they'd just bought Norton, he was very excited about it. That was 2020, right? Yeah, I think, I think so, yeah, yeah, and a few days later or whatever, he said to me, he said, "Would you like to get involved in helping us develop the brand, the brand strategy, how can this develop a professional design organization, coaching, and mentoring the people?" And first of all, you know, I needed to get JLR to agree to that, the good thing is, not a conflict of interest, once two wheels, once four, and they're completely different from each other, and that's how it started, and it did intrigue me, but the thing that really pushed me towards it is the fact that, if design is truly going to be embraced, design creativity, and whatever manifestation, it has to be done right from the top of the business, and if you look at Soudishan, who, you know, he's still, he's not, I don't think he's 40, yeah, yeah, he's a visionary, and he really embraces the importance of creativity and design, and he celebrates it, and he was serious about it, and when you've got that sort of support at that level in a business, you know, design is going to, is going to get where it needs to be eventually, because remember TVS, as a company, you know, design, design, design, design, design, would have, you know, generally sat within engineering because it's very much about, you know, commodities, volume, and they've been incredibly successful, but of course, Norton is a different animal altogether. We use the word luxury, but, you know, let's say high end, but also TVS have aspirations in Europe to elevate to another level as well. So I found it very intriguing. And at the moment, because I've got a bit more time, I'm helping them as much as I can, and it's a real pleasure to work with them. There's a design chief here called Simon Skinner, isn't it? Yeah, and I gather you and he hit it off pretty well. Yeah, he, Simon, Soudishan said to me, "Look, we've got this chief designer in Norton, this guy called Simon Skinner, you know, want you to go and meet him, tell us what you think, or what do I know about bite design?" But anyway, and, you know, there was a little bit of trepidation because I thought, "Look, Simon's a bite designer, I'm a card designer," but there are, we come to it, there are similarities. But what I was really impressed me about Simon was the way he embraced me. He didn't see me. He knew I was coming to help and help him. I mean, up until that point, it'd be designing bites on his kitchen table. I mean, I exaggerate slightly, but I was there, came into help him and think about how can we grow this into a professional design organization? What are the processes you've got to have? What's a design strategy we need? How are we going to make Norton relevant in a modern context to make it a true luxury brand or a higher end brand? So, you know, it started with, we virtually spent all day at the Heritage, you know, the motorbike museum. And we spent a lot of time looking at Norton's at the past to see if there are any really, if there are any salient points that would help us, you know, I don't believe in retro design and need as an either. But was there anything there from a sort of heritage perspective? Because heritage, as you know, is very, is always important to a luxury brand. And what we discovered was, it wasn't so much that there was a particular DNA that ran through everything. I mean, the colour was one thing in the, you know, after the '50s, it started to give a uniformity. But from a pure design perspective, it was more about the fact that in their day, all these bikes were quite modern and forward looking for their day against the competition. And that was the thing that struck us. And after that, it was about trying to develop a design strategy that would, that we could design a portfolio of bikes for. He says, he credits you with coming up with this recipe that will work for a whole range of bikes. And one of the things that struck us, we were looking at them, is this reductionist approach. We've just been looking at rival bikes against the two current Norton's. And they are both remarkably, um, simple as their own word. You'll never doubt it. Yeah, reductive. Yeah. And in fact, that was one of the first things we put on the, I always work on, I think if you're developing any brand, you've got to think about it from a brand perspective. First, what's your brand world? What's its reason for being? Where was it born? You know, one was established. What were its values? You think of somebody like something like Defender. It was born in the country, you know. It was about liberating people. It was about adventure. It was about being purposeful. And all those things came together and then informs the way it's designed, the design DNA. And it was that. And I've used that with rain, drove, and jaguar to a degree as well as one of the last things. And that's, that was the approach. And modernity was one of the first things that we wrote down. And Simon said to me, well, what do you mean by that in the context of a motorbike? And I said, well, when I look at a motorbike, because I was sort of, I've always liked bikes, but I've never really, I was always into cars, but my brother added bike. And I rode race bikes, you know, push bikes. And I was banned from them after a while to the God. I had a couple of little accidents, but I've always looked at like them visually, because of their scale. But I said, I've noticed with a lot of bikes now, there's so much going on. You can't see the wood from the trees. And for me part of my design philosophy has always been, you read it in three. First look, second look, third, first look is proportion, second is surface, third is detail. When you look at a bike, it's different, because the first is proportion overall profile. But then it's detail. And then it's surface, because there's less surface. And there's so much detail, because of all its mechanical exposed, which is a fundamental difference between a car and a bike. You know, you know, a car, you can hide a lot of sins. You don't see all those mechanical parts. The other interesting thing I said to him is the person riding the bike becomes part of the design, because he's exposed. So therefore what they're wearing is really important. So it flows with the harmony of the bikes. That's something with it. He put it really well. He said, you sit on the A surface. Yeah, you do sit on the A surface. So I said to how do we reduce the amount of visual noise? So that's where the reductiveness came from. But you can't just clad everything. And actually those details can be come. So you know, you've got modernity, pair it back as much as you can. But then how do you make we use the term integrated? How do we make these parts that are exposed look more integrated, rather looking like a bag of spaghetti or whatever. And so that was another important element. And then there was that thing about drama. How do we maximize drama in some of the bikes, particularly the manks, the manks are. And it was interesting how it's sort of evolved. And also the processes. I mean, if you compare the process of designing a bike to a car, there are similarities, but a car is much bigger. And it is more complex because there's a lot more stuff. And when you compare the sort of what's important, the big differences, one you expose to the one you're not, one, you know, you're hidden in this vehicle. It carries more people. It's bigger. You're exposed to all the elements, all those things. But then when you drill down, what are the things where they're similar? So proportion, people say, I'm the bike industry, they're not bothered about which is on. You know, a lot of people will say they're not bothered about the design, they're more interesting the way it rides, it handles. And same with the car, they like to say that to post rationalised to justify what they've made it. And the biggest thing that pulls them all, both together, a car and a bike, both have the ability to resonate with people on an emotional level. You don't need a luxury Range Rover. You don't need a luxury naught, but you desire one. And they're not just commodities. So it's that thing about emotional resonance that is so important. How do you get the character? And then the element you mentioned that Simon said about, look at the whole portfolio together. These bikes are going to do different things for different people. But what are the salient points that pull them all together? So when you see them together, they all have their unique personalities. But you can see that they come from the same family without looking like a Russian doll. Do you think the thing that struck me when looking at particularly the manks are against some of the opposition, but probably better not name them, is that whereas the overall look of that bike, the sort of surfacing was more of a priority than it was in the opposition. I was surprised. They just seem to clad the mechanicals and be done with it. Well, I think the difference is this thing. It's interesting that we have Nick here, Nick Rogers, who I've worked with for many years at JLR, and we come from the same sort of philosophy in the old days. And if we look at a car, the engineers got blessed and the product development people would develop. That's the platform. That's where the wheels go. That's where the engineers, this is where the hard put, this is where the people are going to say it's going to be this and then Now can you make it look good? Sorry, the horse is bolted. You have to start with a concept. What do you want this product to be? What's the brand? What's its value? What is its purpose? So what are the types of products you want? And then you define a product conceptually. And then you say to the engineers, now find a way of making that work. It's a totally different way of working. And in the bike industry, they work that way. They'll engineer it, and then they'll say, "Can you make it look good?" And design isn't a priority. You can tell it's not a priority because you see all these horrible pieces of angle iron or a tube, ear, a tube, they're a bolt. Whereas here, we've turned that round. So these two bikes, everything's important visually. These two bikes, the Atlas and the Manks, have both been built according to that, those principles. - Yeah, all of the new, you know, the Atlas, the Manks, Manks are, and there'll be something else coming soon. And there'll be more. All of them are built on that philosophy. And what was interesting was when I came here, I didn't get any pushback on that 'cause I thought, you know, what does he know about bikes? I think I know how to make them look good. I think I know how to make a lot of things look good. But Simon is the expert. But there was no, they embraced it, which was really good. I always remember, you know, 'cause people say to me, and the general view is that when you're doing a luxury item, whatever it is, the more important design becomes as you go. And by the way, I'm not happy unless these things, you know, from an engineering perspective or engineer brilliantly, they handle their ride like a dream and they say, like a car is, you know, you talk about a new Jaguar, that thing will drive like a dream 'cause I've driven it. I think you did, didn't you? - I went in at Matt's driven. - Yeah, I've driven it on ice. - Yeah, yeah. - It's amazing. - It's amazing. - But the, I'm losing my train of thought here. The. - Well, you were talking about the, just the importance of design, but just because it's nice, you know, people say that general view is, if it's a luxury item, design becomes increasingly important. Right? But I'd say equally, designs just as important, even at commodity level. I always remember a lovely quote from my old friend Ralph, and he said, - Ralph Smith? - Yeah, I didn't even nicked it from me, but it's a brilliant quote. He said, he said, "You may think the cost of good design is expensive." Maybe he was referring to my salary at the time. I don't know. He said, "But you want to look at the cost of bad design," which was a great comment. So, but it has to be embraced at the top. - Yeah. - And that has to work its way down. - Do you think you're gonna change. But when I looked at those two bikes, the Atlas and the Manks, I found myself thinking that this might well change the priorities of some of the opposition, 'cause they look crude alongside what you've created. - I mean, you know, one of the things I do, it's quite often we used to go in there, and I'd look at the competition, I'd just take notice of them, and I'd say to Simon, "Yeah, 'cause it's the same oil you get the comb, "well, we need to have this." Forget all that. What do you want this to be? Want it to be a lot better. And they do, when you look at the ones that are coming, and I'm not naming who the competition is, there is a massive, I think, delta in terms of. Yeah, what I've tried to do here is not tell Simon what to do, but it's help elevate the importance of design. But it's design and engineering together. - You've always done that, though. - Yeah, and Simon might say, "Well, if we lower the, you know, in India, for example, "where the roads aren't as good you have to have a bigger gap "between, you know, your riding position." Well, fine, if that's what you've got to have, then do it, and find a way of still making it look good and when you put it in Europe, just lower it, whatever. There has to be a level of pragmatism to it. I think what I've learned over the years is being a perfectionist or kill you. So there you have to learn to work with what you've done. You wouldn't see yourself as a perfectionist or would you? I am a perfectionist in my, you know, visual aesthetics in what I aspire to, but I think you have to remember that we're creating industrial products and there has to be a level of balance. And you don't want the design to compromise the engineering, but you don't want the engineering to compromise the design on this, so you've got to get to a balance. It depends what your priorities are. But you're famous for making sure that the engineering priorities didn't over to, I mean, I think there's plenty of examples that you could rattle off, no doubt, but the one I think of is the way the evoke maintained its, it came out as a beautiful concept car and it went into production as a beautiful car. Well, I tell you a good example there, and this is the engineer's, you know, when we did the concept car, it was all about the drama of that car, have this sort of dramatic rising belt line that gave you that forward thrust of the falling roof that narrowed it right down the back so you couldn't really see out the back. And I remember the engineers, God love them, say, Jerry, can we lower the waist line a bit? Can we lift the roof line a bit? And I say, yeah, you can, but you're just normalizing it. You'll lose its drama because that design was very, its simplicity is always complex, but the rudimental lies, falling roof, rising belt line, wheel at each corner, minimum overhangs, that's its character. Start lifting the roof up, yeah, I'm comparable in terms of roof height with something else, but look how boring that is, what do you want? - Yeah. - Do you reckon those conversations happened in other companies, but the engineers won the argument? - Probably, I mean, I'm sure. Yeah, I mean, maybe that's what made me slightly and popular to some people. I mean, you know, maybe it's the passion. Lot, you only have to look at the results if you look at evoke, you know, it was-- - Yeah, tell us the stats on that. You always used to say it set out to sell 30,000 and did-- - Well, you know, the interesting thing now is in the luxury space, you never talk about volume, because if you talk about volume, you talk about exclusivity. You don't go tell the press where we sell to 130,000 of those a year, 'cause customers say, "Well, I don't want one, "then I ain't very exclusive." But the time we weren't at that stage, but I remember the aspiration, and the volumes for that were about 40,000, 50,000. I remember I'm in a conversation when I was in Russia, I must go doing something for the company and the marketing guy at the time said, we're gonna change the name of it, 'cause it was gonna be a last, and I said, I told you all the time, it shouldn't have been a Range Rover, 'cause we designed it to be a Range Rover. And he said, "But that's gonna drop the volumes." You know, probably would do about 45,000 a year, yeah. Well, you know, I've reached, what, 130,000? - Yeah, for years and years. - Yes, you know, yeah. - How interesting. - Yeah. - 'Cause it was designed, and it was the, yeah. These things evolved, don't they? You don't know at the time. Tell us about your, there's a shocking hacks questions, but I've always been desperate. Every time somebody passes me in a Range Rover, a current Range Rover, I look at that car and think it's so perfect. I can't imagine how you would improve on it. Could you, if you got anything, if you got a shape in your head that would improve on it, if you were still there and doing it. Maybe that's why I left, I couldn't figure one. - But I mean, if you look at that car, if you look at the way Range Rover is evolved over time from it's original to where it is now. And if you, if you look at the car you have now, which quite rightly, it does have, it, you know, it does have a level of sophistication. It's paired back to within a fraction of its life almost. You can't refine it any more, free from over ornamentation, you know, real reduction of line, it's got great plan shape, all those things. But we would never have got to that if we hadn't done the car before it. - Yeah. - 'Cause that car informed that one, 'cause you got to that point, and then it evolved from that car and the one before that as well. So I think with certain brands, and I think Porsche 911 is another good example of that. They evolve from a particular characteristic over time. I do think to do, you know, another Range Rover like that is a massive challenge. - You made it hard for the next bloke? - Yeah, well, you know, it might be, I sometimes it's much better to start again than is to try and take that design and just refine it. I think you can refine it for, you know, so many iterations in terms of the inside technology maybe brings some switch gear back, you know, details, but in terms of the essence of its overall proportion, its plan shape, you know, that continuous belt line, the continuous roof line. That's so bad. - I just love with those tail lights. I keep looking at those days. But I gather not everybody likes those, I mean whoever doesn't like those needs to do that. You're always going to get opinions about design. I always say, "Look, it's great to have, you know, which should probably bring us to the controversy over, you know, the jaguarad or the lucha or whatever." People are always going to have opinions. I always say, you know, you can keep your, you want to try design, you know, the busily from people that never designed anything in their lives. But that's fine, I can live with that. Talking about the lucha is an interesting one. We were Matt and I were on chat about this. What do you make of that project? The thing that intrigues us is the fact that they got a completely different design team in to do it. And without disturbing the people who were doing normal for our reasons. Was that an interesting approach? If you've been there, would you have wanted to have a go at the lucha? And do you think it's a good job? I think you have to just pull back a little bit. By the way, I know Johnny I very well, I know Mark, they're very good creatives. And I think the first thing you have to say is they're, you know, car design isn't their natural habitat, however. They are competent creatives. Now, I've known Mark for 20 years, I remembered meeting him in the gear studio when he was doing that concept. Oh, the little car, yeah, yeah. And I always remember him saying to me, I don't know, design cars, he's a total mind, whatever. So he's a great character. But what I do think is where Ferrari were brave, was to do that, to say, let's have a look at a different point of view. Here's a vehicle that's going to be all electric. How can a Ferrari change? What can the Ferrari DNA be for a full electric vehicle? And let's take, and maybe if you've taken some car designers, you'd have got a similar result, which had been an evolution of the DNA they've got now or whatever, it may have not been as sort of polarizing, let's say. I think the mistake that was made, and by the way, in terms of the design people said to me, what do you think of it? I've always learnt one thing, you never comment on a design until you've seen it in the flesh. It might sound like a cop out, but it's true, because you can't looking at it on a phone, on an iPad or whatever. You can't even with what, when you know it's dimensions, you see it against something else. You've got to see it in the flesh, I think, to give a learned response, and I haven't. But I'm sure that, you know, and then I'll look at the interior, I can just tell that thing is built to a level of quality, haptic nature, and finish, and a different point of view, or how you interface with the interior. I mean, Johnny is incredibly bright in the way he approaches that. I think the big mistake that was made is I thought the way they communicated it, not Johnny and Mark, but the way Ferrari communicated it was very poor. Because I left the thing, what is this? Is it a Ferrari saying that this is the direction of Ferrari's new design DNA, or are they saying it's a one-off for this particular vehicle? They didn't say that. So the lovers of Ferrari, of a particular approach, I think, and all the vehicles going to be like this. And I don't think they were saying that. It just didn't communicate it very well. I don't think it was, from a brand perspective, the narrative around what this was trying to achieve. I mean, I think if you listen to Johnny talk about it, he articulated it very well, but from a brand perspective, to all the people who were criticising it particularly, it was very difficult to understand what they were trying to do, other than that they were doing an all-electric vehicle, and they've got some designers that were non-automotive to come and do it. And that was brave in itself, but the way it was communicated, for me, and I do think, look, some of the commentary, that was got very personal about, particularly Johnny, I thought was sickening quite frankly. I mean, I've had my criticism in my time, and the thing compared with that, there's just no need for it. I suppose it's a world we're living in. Matt, is the one of us who has seen the interior, you sat in the car? Yeah, and you're like, you say the feel, and the finish of it is first, I'm not sure, there's a better feeling interior going, I think it's. I suppose it's that thing of how the question I'd naturally have on it is, as it got Ferrari DNA in it, you know, that's the thing. Yeah, I don't know, I don't know. But I wonder if the reaction to it, you might have thought on this, it would have been different if it wasn't an electric vehicle, in the same way that the reaction to the Jaguar made me different. Yeah. If it had a V8 or a V12 in the front of it, rather than being anything interesting, it might have been even worse, you don't know. And well, there's a difference, we just, you know, on the Jaguar thing. And I'm looking forward to seeing that car in the flesh. Well, I don't know what volume it's going to be, it's not going to be particularly big volumes, most Ferrari's aren't, but whether or not that's going to inform the next generation, I'm not sure it will. I do think that Ferrari need to, by the way, I'm not after the job of Ferrari, but I do think that they need to be a bit more clear about what their DNA is, because you've ended up with it quite disparate in terms of its aesthetic. I don't see a DNA that's pulling them together like you used to see when you look at some of the grades. Yeah. But it's easy, it's easy to criticise, it's much harder to do it. Yeah, it was just such a gigantic step, wasn't it? Oh, yeah, yeah. And I think one of the things that looked at, but again, I'd need to see in the first that from a professional design perspective that looked quite strange to me, was the wheel-to-body relationship. You know, you know, Ferrari's, or you got the comforts of the wheel, you got the wheel arch, it's always really close. You know, a bit of rubber if you like, which gives you that really strong stance. And you know, it looked to be sitting to me artificially very high, but it could have been the top, it could have been the last one. I don't know. Now, with the Jaguar thing, all the publicity there wasn't really much about the car. With Ferrari, it was all about the car, wasn't it? Yeah. With Jaguar, it was all about the ad. I think it was. Yeah. And the badge and so on. Well, you know, one thing you have to remember is that, isn't it great that so many people are talking about Jaguar and Ferrari? Doesn't it demonstrate how much passion there is for great altruism? No, it does. And also how much awareness of Jaguar and its senate, then the position it's in. But the reality is what people were missing. I don't like that view. I'll just really like that. For the list of those. You don't want to get that right. What was it going to say? You told me of the Jag. And the first thing to say is that people and realise that Jaguar had to be reinvented. You know, without going into the detail, Jaguar financially was a failure. And anybody will admit that, and that was the reality. Jaguar had been great in its heyday, no doubt about that. And I'm not blaming anybody for that. But it got into a position where nobody was buying Jaguars. It was losing money and overfist for many years. So all the people that were saying, oh, this isn't a Jaguar or whatever. Where were they? Why weren't they buying these Jaguars that they lost so much? You know, that's the first thing to say. So we needed a complete re-imagining of the brand and the product. I mean, that story with, you know, when we did the cars, when we started developing the cars, we did something like 17 full-size models. I remember I think I told you that story before. But when the, you know, a brand is more than its products. But products are nothing without the brand. And the brand is much more than its logo and its name. And I think what happened was with that film, it got taken out of context. Because what we were saying is, we want Jaguars to be a copy of nothing. So that's why you saw all these people look like a copy of nothing. And then that was related to other different types of communication, which nobody got to see. I think where it slipped up was that it got into a debate about the brand. bigger cultural, socio-economic, but the bigger cultural debate around behaviors, culture in America, most opening platform X, say what you like, Trump saying what he likes, etc. And being anti-cultural, sort of, I didn't even know what woke is meant at the time, you know. And it got into that, it got stuck into that argument. And you even had Trump, you know, people say, well, it was this and that. For four months, Jaguars Jaguars the most talked about, branding the world for four months. It hadn't been talked about for years before that. So on the basis of that, you say, it's a massive success. And the reality is Jaguars is new Jaguars, not aimed at the masses. It's going to be a particular, you know, market audience. And what we did see is when they saw the car, that sentiment started to change. It was less aggressive. The others quite, when I look back on it, I think it is slightly amusing, although I didn't feel like at the time, when we showed the car in pink, that was another one. Well, of course, it's, well, look at it, it's pink. Well, but the reason we did it in pink, and I'll be the one I said, we're going to Miami boys and girls, think Miami, think Floridian Flamingo, think Art Deco, pastel colors, pastel pink, pastel blues, softer. That's where the cool, that's where it came from, but it got interpreted, you know, so the color issue became a big thing. It is the case, though, isn't it? That car has been seen, even the concept has been seen around and about now. And there are far, far more people who now believe they understand it. Yeah. And I mean, if you, you know, we started, we realized that a lot from a comms perspective, this is being misinterpreted. So, you know, we had to make adjustments, but part of doing concepts and brands, you refine them. A lot of the information we were getting was helping. And you know, you notice we did the, we did the car for Paris in that client blue, which was fatal or fantastic in that. We did the car in London in that sort of, I don't know what you call that, almost like a burgundy ready, ready orange. So one of the last things I looked at and approved before I left Jan looked fabulous. You know, the blue was, again, the culture it was going into, client blue, you know, the French artists who developed the boom painted it and annoyed every other artist in the world because they couldn't use it. It was always linked to stories. So yeah, but the button lining this is that I'm sure that when these jaguars come out, they're going to be fabulous. And, you know, they drive brilliantly. That, that's what we'll do the talking. I mean, when you look back, it's great one for the history box. Yeah. And it almost remind me a little bit of, you know, I was used to say to people, I was a big fan of gladiator, you know, the original one with Ritzel Crowe when he's going into battle against the marauding sort of, you know, marauding hordes of barbarians or whatever they were. Hold the line, stay with me because it got a bit like that. It'll be interesting to see, you know, get a year or two downstream from the launch and see, see how you feel. Do you reckon, is, do you see that as a peak of your work? You've done, I've now you haven't seen the peak yet. Have I? No. Okay. Well, that's the next chapter. Will that be a car? We can come to that. What else you want to talk about? Well, tell us about the thing I've often, remember, Ritz, talk about Norton. Norton. Well, we've talked a fair bit about that. Okay. But the thing that I would keen to talk about a little bit is just how you recall your very early stuff because I have traveled along with you fairly long way. And I can remember the, the MGF still looks great. The early Freelander invented a new class MGEX, a fantastic concept car that you could launch tomorrow. How do you remember all that stuff? Do you, do you sort of, do you have fun or do you just dismiss it? No, I don't dismiss it because it's all part of the learning process. I mean, I look at certain things that I'll cringe a bit. If I look at the original Freelander and I look at, you know, the, the sort of feature line that's on the clamshell bonnet that comes off the waistline, it's got an inside elevation, it's slightly elevates up and it shouldn't because when we went through the surfacing process, we actually didn't get the sections right. So it looks a little bit wooden, but probably only a few people like me would see it. But look, they were, they, all those vehicles I think were appropriate for their time. I think they all had big impact on the companies and help those companies, particularly Freelander. Another one was, you know, discovery sport. Again, that was very successful for many years. Yeah. It's still a, it's still an awesome car. You know, there's selling 135,000 of those a year. So it was, it was, it sort of, I mean, it's almost like a big, there was so much that went on through a period. It was constant. Yeah. What do you reckon is the king hit though? When it, if you look at that, I mean, is it, is it the defender? The defender was was another one of these cars that just sort of burst out of it's, it, it, it completely obliterated. It's actual aspirations, didn't it? Oh, yeah, very much. But I remember again, you know, the, if you do, I think if you do a car and everybody's comfortable with it to begin with and the, and it's what they expect, they're great, it's going to fail. I mean, I can remember people saying to me that, you know, come on to the stand and look to the, for your kill in the brand, really. How would you like it to, what would you like it to look like, like the old one? We can't do it like that anymore. There's legislation. It's not refined enough, blah, blah, blah. That wasn't, that wasn't a point of view. Wasn't it? Lots of people wanted to just do the old one. Yeah. Yeah. And the old one's got charm. You know, if you wanted a bad back foot or luresce to your life and drive one. He owns one. Yeah. I mean, I look, you know, I think got great carrots on. Notice you walk a bit funny. But there's another thing up with Defender. If Defender had evolved, like say, Range Rover had through so many iterations, you would have ended up with that car. But you'd got Defender, well, it was, you know, a series of blah, blah, blah. But you had a massive gap. So I always remember talking to the top team about it. We need to think about this. If it gone through each iteration and new design every 10 years, what would we have today? And that was part of it. I mean, I think Defender's so distinctive on the road, and that's why everybody copies them, you know, the Chinese. Everybody wants one, don't they? All age groups. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And Range Rovers. Yeah. So to me, you know, this, when you look at this sort of landscape, because I remember when I used to travel between Gaden and London. So I've lived in London for many years. And when I used to, you know, this is really sad. I used to drive down the motorway and I'd be counting. And the Range Rover was, I could count or well, at that time, before we had the Defender. And I noticed over it, and it was, I'd celebrate every time I counted more. And now, of course, to give you going central London, if you go in Mayfair or, you know, these sort of high net worth places, it's full of them. Yeah. So what's next? You know, there was, obviously, you're going to shed, you continue to work with Simon and bring distinction to Norton. Do you think that the same sort of excellence is possible here that you brought to? I wouldn't be, I wouldn't be doing it if I didn't think that it could. And I think with somebody live Soudoushan at the, you know, it's a chairman who's going credible energy. There's only young bloke anyway. But clearly, I want to do other stuff as well. And I've had that conversation with him a lot. There's talk of a, of a, a consultancy, isn't it? Yeah. And, and, you know, those, there are, there are a lot of opportunities out there. You must have, I've had a lot of approaches. So, of course, yeah. All the time. But I want to be very particular about what I, what, what I do. I am definitely going to work with the, I am going to do cars. Like, it's in my blood. I need to see your next car, I really don't But it's gonna happen. to be the right ones, the right brands, and it's got to be with people I want to work with because there is another chat to you. Yeah, that's fantastic. He drawn to luxury as a think automotive. I think purely by the virtue of fact gives you more scope, gives you more scale. Mainstream, I mean I look at a lot of cars on the road and sometimes I can't tell one from the other. Is that an opportunity? It is an opportunity. I mean I always look back to when I was a kid, when I used to look at American cars and then when I went over to America in 1978, what show my age now, it was probably passed it then in terms of if you think of the early 70s, late 60s, middle 60s, those American cars had so much personality. They were art on wheels, they were sculptural, I mean I know they were huge, the country is huge and that must have been a, I mean I talked to designers, older designers that had worked in the studios back then, it would have been incredible to have worked as a designer then. Which is one of the reasons why I went to Lincoln of course in 2000. You produce some fantastic concept cars there, didn't you? Yeah, I look back very fondly with those, that a great team together, some people now that have gone on to bigger and better, that were part of my team. I think what happened though is we did all these concept vehicles to show directly where Lincoln wanted to go and Mercury and it was a great vision, but the company changed their mind, that was when they wanted it to be global, they wanted it to be and then they changed their mind. Always a risk management involved, isn't it? And that's why I think it's important that as a design leader you have to learn to operate within that environment and understand people's, I suppose Norton is an example of a company that is now looking very stable indeed with the same owners and management and so on. Yeah, I mean Norton, Norton had a pretty checkered history before TVS bought it. I mean you have to, you know, it's interesting if you look at Indian companies like Tata or JLR and saved it, you could argue that Indian company again bought Norton saved it. Sometimes the British don't realise what they've got and that's one of the things that is important to me also when it comes to art and design education. You know, I've been talking to the Royal College of Art about how we elevate the importance of design education. What will you do there? Well, you know, I've been a professor there for quite a few years and I, you know, I went to the Royal College of Art and I've set projects there in the past, but one of the things that asked me to look at is how can I help them elevate the importance of creativity and education where, you know, for example, when I went to the Royal College of Art, yeah, I'm a working class kid, you know, it was virtually impossible to get to that higher education as a working class kid. It was only because I was lucky enough to get sponsored. Now, it's even worse is virtually impossible. So we're missing a lot of potential real talent that aren't getting that opportunity and that, you know, intrigues me. I think also a lot of the colleges have become two generalists and I've talked to them about how do you become more specialists? How do you train the next group of top card designers, motorbike designers, you've got a materials designers, product designers, rather than all being generalists? The other thing that intrigues me, which is what I tried to do at J. Alana, I've been doing here, is this thing about, you know, brand worlds because, you know, I said it earlier, most people think a brand is a logo and it's a wordmark. It's far more than that, the amount of creative disciplines that have to come into play to develop a brand, you know, whether it's, you know, UX UI design, which should be coming increasingly for materiality, digital, you know, graphic design above the line advertising. It's a whole array of different creative disciplines, which generally has been done outside of these companies by agencies, but you never get it truly integrated in that way. So part of the plan is, how do you bring that in house? So everything talks to each other. Yeah. And how do you afford it, I suppose? Yeah, yeah. But, you know, these companies invest big bucks. We, I suppose we reach the point we've had enough now. No, you probably need a bit of a break from us, but I just want to ask you the killer question, long career, full of achievements. What's the one that you would put on in pole position? What is the thing that you did where you've achieved that you feel proud of stuff? You know, I'd rather put it slightly either way, rather than specifically talking about a particular design, because at the end of the day, you know, I had great people around me. I think my, the thing that I'm most satisfied by is the knowledge that I managed to change the way a company thought about design and built an organization that had the ability to produce things that truly resonated with people on an emotional level. And, you know, I get a great kick out. I've taught, you know, quite often I get approached by people self, got a ranger, I've got a defender, I've got this. And it's the twinkle in their eyes of the engagement they have with it. Because you say to some people, I used to do quite often with customers in America, why did you buy that ranger over? So, you know, well, it's got this incredible capability to do this. And I know I've been up the mountains and all the rest of it. And it's got this technology. Yeah, why did you really buy it? Well, I just looked at it and I had to have it. But what you would say is, if that car didn't have its name on it, would it be so desirable? It's a bit like the watch thing. You've got two watches there. One are equal in design quality, engineering, design, everything. But one's got a more equity in the brand that's sitting on it. And that's got a lot to do with it as well. So, I didn't answer your question because I just find that really difficult. You know, I love all of them. That's okay. It's not over yet. No, well, indeed. If the next one's brand in the government, you never know. Let's go. We look forward to that. Jeremy Goffin, thank you so much for your time. Pleasure. Now, I thanks then to Jerry Pussett for being at Norton for showing us around the building as well. Yeah, it was good. Simon Skinner was a good bloke, wouldn't he? Yeah, really good. I wonder if I know it's motorbikes, but I wonder if we should have Simon on as a guest, because really interesting, I think. Really interesting. Yeah, I think what he makes the point for is all the stuff that car designers talk about. So, you know, proportions and stance and surfacing and all the stuff that you think is only relevant to cars is what works rather well with motorbikes. And these Norton's, these two Norton's that we saw, the Manks and the Atlas are very good examples of fine design, aren't they? Yeah, and I, what I, yeah, the things I like about them is that as you say, the surfacing is something that Norton clearly think is important and the design is clearly important. Somebody said the other day that, oh, yeah, when I interview a designer from Jail and Existing designer from Jail, I was saying, you know, design is the primary reason that people buy those products. Yeah. You know, people will, when you say to people, why if you bought a Range Rover, they will say, because I like the way it looks, and they will say that first and foremost. Yeah. And that seems to be something that Norton are considering applying to their motorcycles that people will buy them because they like to look at them. And actually a lot of motorbikes, modern motorbikes don't look great. No, I don't think. Well, no, because as we learned, didn't we in there, by looking at some opposition stuff in their design studio, they're, they're kind of race bikes at heart, just clad. However, they can be clad. Whereas the Norton's were very jerry, weren't they very reductive, very simple, but, you know, Simon Skinner had done the minutiae, I believe, Simon Skinner and his designers. Yeah. But the philosophy was very much my garments, wasn't it? Yeah. Really interesting partnership. Yeah, I think so. I mean, it's it, you know, like Audi Volkswagen Group owned Yucati. Yeah. If you said where would that Norton Bye. a cycle design set in an automotive group. It could, you know, it could sit alongside rainravers and things, couldn't it? It doesn't. It's, there is a, I remember Jerry didn't do the design of those bikes, but they do, you know, they do look like it's the reductiveness, isn't it? Which is the phrase of having, they all influence one another, don't they? It's very interesting. You rode a 200 horsepower 1.2 liter Norton Manks, Manks Norton? Oh, yeah. I had a wobble around the block on it. And so what do you mean? Is he riding with a couple of their test riders? Oh, yeah, their guy who runs the Steve, fellow Steve, if you listen, runs their fleet of bikes. They have a lot of bikes on fleet, because they've got a lot of competitor motorcycles, and then they've got a lot of test motorcycles. And then, you know, so they, they run, you know, customer fleets and media fleets and engineering fleets. So he looks after a lot of bikes. Anyway, went for a ride around and it was, what, 4th, 30 on a Friday afternoon. So I was thinking, I'll just go around the block and back, because there's no way you're going to find a decent set of roads around here. Yeah. They'll just be sitting in traffic, overeating and wearing out my clutch hand. I actually found a really nice set of roads for a half hour, joint around the countryside. And I'm not really a sports bike bloke anymore. I did have a GCAT-748, which is really fun. It puts all the weight on your wrists when you're sitting there. And I don't know, just, I just, you know, it just feels weird to me now that I've been driving riding sort of big adventure bikes or off-roaders for the past 15 years, you know, to get back on a sports bike and have all the weight on the front again. And I was thinking, I'm not going to, and it's 200 horsepower weight, which is way more than I can handle. I don't need my bike's 60 horsepower, and I'm very rarely useful throng. And it's 20 years old, so it probably doesn't have 60 horsepower. And within, yeah, sure enough, the first couple of minutes, I sort of wobbled off around the, around the factory to get to the gate and was thinking, oh, my God, I'm not going to enjoy this very much at all. Within about 10 to 15 minutes, I was having a really good time. And I felt at home on it on a way that I had not expected to feel at home on, and when I've come and read the other reviews by proper bike journalists, you know what they're talking about, there is a thing they say, look, you know, it is a, it is not an intimidating bike for the amount of power it has. You know, there are, you get on some sports racing motorcycles or super bikes, what if you want to call them. And because the design of them is so focused around the fact that manufacturers and riders race these bikes nearly stock in super bike championships, that ends up defining the way those bikes are like to ride. But the, but the max R is 1200 cc, so you can't race it because there's no championships open to it. So actually, they've made it a more chilled sports bike. It is a sports bike, you know, it's really agile, it's really fast, way too fast for me. But it's not, it's about you, you can get on with it. Yeah, you can get along with it. And by the time I came back, I was thinking, I could carry on riding this, this is, yeah. So, yeah, sorry, I just had a, if I paused then, an email just arrived with a, with a, a subject about a podcast that we've, that we've published at the weekend. And when I see that, I just get a slight, who's this, who's this from and what's it going to say? Is it, is it from somebody's boss who says, I listen to your podcast and I'm outraged and he said something. You're going to get sued over and I suddenly thought, but actually, thank you, Richard Piper for your very kind email, which says what a thoughtful and interesting guy, but credit for extracting so much insight for the involvement of new alpha models. It's really kind of you to say, thank you. I really appreciate that. Thanks, Richard. Yeah. Yeah, relief. Hey, what are the highlights of what Jerry said to you, me? Oh, well, I, I suppose highlight number one is that he's, he's happy, because I like, he's my hero and I, and I look at a modern ranger over and I just think it's wonderful. So he said a number of things. It was interesting to me that he said that the ranger over was had now reached a point where he thought that whoever does it next time is going to have to start again. Yeah, I thought that was interesting. It sort of evolved over the last couple of generations and now needs a reboot. Yeah, which is interesting. And he said, I, you know, as we know, he's going to start a concern. He's in the throes of starting a consultancy of his own. And he says, he's had dozens of offers and he intends to design cars again, which I want to see the next McGovern car. I do. Oh, and the other thing, do you remember, he talked about, he's quite matey with both Johnny Ive and Mark Mollison and he gave some good comments about the, the electric Ferrari, you know, it said that he understood why Ferrari had given the job to people that were outside the Ferrari remit. But he felt that the company themselves hadn't communicated the task or the size of the task very well. So it was a really interesting interview. I think he was much more candid than perhaps we expected, wasn't he? Yeah. Yeah. Because but that's him. He, he, he does, that's what I really like about the guy. You ask him a question, usually gives you the answer. Yeah. I like that. Yeah. That is the nice thing about talking to designers, isn't it? Is that they are very good at that sort of thing. Yeah. And in fact, people at the top of the very top of companies are very open about saying things in a way that actually the further, I did the Christmas, no, I've bought you with this story and what can do it again. I went, did the Christmas road test and the captain on the boat said, yep, absolutely, you should fire the big gun. Don't I say this on the phone mate? No, no, no, no, I'm sure I have, but it's a read or a write-in if I have told you this story. Tell us again. You go do the Christmas road test of, we did a Navy ship and the and the and the and the boss, I think, you know, the captain, the boat said, yeah, go see, tomorrow we're doing a live firing exercise, you should go, you should fire the big gun. You should, you know, you should, you should, you should blow something out of the water. Wow. That's fantastic. Anyway, then he says, it sends you off with somebody else who's slightly junior who says, yeah, well, hopefully, we'll, you know, we'll probably get you to fire the big gun. You go off fantastic. And then they go off and you get sent down to somebody next down the big order who says, yeah, well, I mean, maybe we'll get you to fire the big gun. And by the time you get to the person who's actually firing the gun, then they're not going to let you anywhere near the flipping. And the further up the company, you go, the more confidence and the more liberal and the more open people can be, I think. And at some point, people are worried about the number of bosses they have that they don't want to say anything that will get them into trouble. And that's why I think if I may blow the autogar podcast trumpet, we do tend to talk to people who say what they think. Yes. Jerry's one of them really is. Oh, but I just look forward to his future. Well, he said to us, didn't he? I said, have you peaked then? You know, remember, we were talking about the the Range Rover because I've got a boundless respect for that car. And I said, is that the peak? And he said, you haven't seen the peak yet? Oh, yeah, that's interesting. What would you do if you were redesigning the Range Rover tomorrow? How would I change it? Oh, God, that car is so perfect to me. I look at those, particularly, I'm saying I'm a part, I look at those beautiful thin tail lights and I just think that's such a piece of inspiration. I couldn't imagine having a better idea than that. I wouldn't know. I'm not a designer's boot lace, shall we say, keeping it clean? What about you? I think he's I think he's he's right in the whoever's doing it next has got to do. You can't just refine what it is at the moment. I think you'd have to do a bit of a reset. Maybe you just go, I don't know, maybe you'd go back to putting some more early cues into it with a flatter nose. The trouble is, is that stuff that you might put in the from the original one in a very thin pillars and a big glass area and a flat nose, those things are not necessarily very compatible with modern standards of things here with crashing aerodynamics nearly else. So I don't quite know how you and you know a very tall ground clearance. So I don't quite know how you do it and also the Range Rover Sport has taken over some of those some of those cues in the short front, the long tail. So yeah, I don't know what you do. I don't know, I don't know what you do. No, the Defender also complicate the issue too, doesn't it, because that does such a brilliant job of modernity. Maybe you've got to go right back to the the original Tudor Range Rover and visit the grill. Yeah, maybe. Yeah, yeah, yeah, anyway, something's got an interesting gig. Yeah. Well, that brings us to the end of this part episode 205 of the Otakot podcast and we have some weekend editions around weekend interviews, cues and A's and stuff too. Really? Stephen, thank you, mate. Thank you. Thanks again to everybody in order. Thanks to our sponsor, Anson, visit Anson-TV.com for more from them and mate, I'll see you next week. Yeah, (upbeat music)