FCA's Lead Designer Seems to Be Having Fun With Us
With the coronavirus keeping everyone on the cusp of cabin fever, we’ve seen unaccompanied celebrities release collaborative renditions of terrible songs in order to maintain their fragile egos, museums offering virtual tours and activities, and texts from good people that we haven’t heard from in ages. The secret to living in isolation, it seems, is to remain active and upbeat while sharing those positive vibes — something made easier by the internet.
Keeping that in mind, we noticed some buzz surrounding Fiat Chrysler lead designer Ralph Gilles on Monday. Seemingly bored to tears, he’s been working from home this month and decided to share a rendition of the Dodge Charger (maybe Challenger?) the team has been working on. While clearly an early design draft of a yet-unbuilt concept model, we’re not so sure the artist has taken the exercise totally seriously.
It’s not the loud paint color (which is pretty standard for Dodge) or the hood pins and wild dimensions that raise our collective eyebrow — it’s the integrated front spoiler guards Gilles saw fit to include and then make reference to. And yet there may still be some legitimate automotive design taking place here. FCA’s design head at least admitted the image was in service of an experimental design at one point — though that may have also been in jest.
“We are still having virtual design reviews while we self isolate & work from home,” Gilles wrote on Instagram. “While we are NEVER to show future product on social media I have made an exception this time as this experimental design of a of the future fell on the cutting room floor… because the designer decided to make the yellow spoiler guards a permanent part of the theme. We had a really good laugh about it though!”
While we’re under the assumption that Gilles simply wanted to brighten everyone’s day by making light of the bizarre trend where Dodge customers leave on the protective yellow guards that are supposed to be dumped after shipping, there’s always a chance this rendering could denote the styling of some future product. No one could tell you which cues might stick around without FCA’s help — and that isn’t happening.
Instead, we’re just having a good laugh and taking note of the Dodge brand’s continued willingness to engage with customers like they’re real people who might have an opinion about cars. It’s solid marketing, whether that was Gilles’ original intent or not, and a smart way to keep us thinking about the brand as the entire auto industry essentially goes on hiatus.
[Image: Ralph Gilles/ Instagram]
A staunch consumer advocate tracking industry trends and regulation. Before joining TTAC, Matt spent a decade working for marketing and research firms based in NYC. Clients included several of the world’s largest automakers, global tire brands, and aftermarket part suppliers. Dissatisfied with the corporate world and resentful of having to wear suits everyday, he pivoted to writing about cars. Since then, that man has become an ardent supporter of the right-to-repair movement, been interviewed on the auto industry by national radio broadcasts, driven more rental cars than anyone ever should, participated in amateur rallying events, and received the requisite minimum training as sanctioned by the SCCA. Handy with a wrench, Matt grew up surrounded by Detroit auto workers and managed to get a pizza delivery job before he was legally eligible. He later found himself driving box trucks through Manhattan, guaranteeing future sympathy for actual truckers. He continues to conduct research pertaining to the automotive sector as an independent contractor and has since moved back to his native Michigan, closer to where the cars are born. A contrarian, Matt claims to prefer understeer — stating that front and all-wheel drive vehicles cater best to his driving style.
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I actually LIKE the bright, contrasting spoiler guards. They add some color and visual interest to the usual dull grey scale selection of exterior color choices (although Dodge does have a nice color assortment!).
In a world with no speedbumps (front spoiler), pavement irregularities (tire aspect ratio), dark nights (lighting efficacy), or heads and shoulders (greenhouse), this vehicle would appeal to me. But that's not the world I live in.