It’s no wonder SangYup Lee, Head of Design at Hyundai and winner of this year’s Autocar Design Hero award, can’t decide what his favorite car he’s designed is.
“It’s always a tough question when you’ve been involved with the Bentley Continental GT, the Chevrolet Camaro, Chevy Corvette and Bentley Flying Spur,” smiles Lee.
“I would say it’s the car I’m working on: when you’re proud of a car you’ve designed, it’s hard to keep challenging the status quo. How do you carry on [to the next car]? Sometimes you have to forget what you’ve done before and challenge yourself on a new level.
Lee has worked on 15 brands in eight countries over 25 years. Now as chief designer for Hyundai and Genesis, he oversees the creation of 50 production cars at any one time in 11 design centers around the world, with a team of 700 people.
He describes digital processes as one of Hyundai’s strengths: “We look [designs] on virtual reality and augmented reality. That’s why we were able to deliver so many cars during the pandemic. We have a huge virtual reality room, the size of two basketball courts, and we walk around looking at a car. Guys in the States join us from their kitchens and we all review together. It’s a new automotive design process.
Lee joined Hyundai in 2016 from Bentley, after working at Volkswagen Group and General Motors. Since then, Hyundai’s design has become increasingly admired, especially for the Ioniq 5 but also for the Prophecy and Seven concepts, previewing the upcoming Ioniq 6 and Ioniq 7.
When asked where he finds inspiration, Lee replies, “Everywhere. Sometimes I go to a huge parking lot, like at Costco in the United States. I park my car, put a chair in the corner and look at all the cars, and I wonder: how do I make my car special? I watch how customers interact with the car: how they open the door, how they put things in the trunk. I’m thinking: should I lower the line a bit to put stuff in the trunk, and should I design the seats differently to make it easier to put kids in the back?
“Inspiration comes from looking at parking lots looking at architecture. I spoke to [British architect] Thomas Heatherwick recently; I love his London double decker bus. The shape is very soft, very functional and truly unique. “Sometimes we forget that we bring creative value to customers. If there are no customers, the car on the street does not exist. Automakers can be selfish about their brand, but the answers come from customers and what they want.
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Source: www.autocar.co.uk
This notice was published: 2022-05-10 21:31:23
