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Down Under designer Mike Simcoe is helping GM freshen up its North American marques

In the past, Detroit's big three carmakers have produced 'world cars' that did not truly come off. It might be reasonable to expect that a common model could win over customers from Beijing to Berlin, but the strictly regional successes of cars such as General Motors' early-1980s J-car, Ford's Mondeo and anything from Chrysler have proven otherwise.

What makes this even more illogical is the international nature of car designers. Mike Simcoe is the Australian creator of Down Under icons such as the Holden Commodore and Monaro coupe.

For the past five years, however, he has spent virtually half his time elsewhere in GM's Asia-Pacific world, designing Buicks for China, Suzukis for Japan and Daewoos for South Korea.

Mr Simcoe's chameleon-like cultural qualities will be further put to the test in the next couple of months, when he moves to Detroit to take up the position of executive director design, body frame integral architectures. The shift in mindset from a Daewoo Lanos to a Cadillac de Ville is sizeable, but Mr Simcoe was hand-picked for the task by GM's product supremo and chairman of North American operations, Bob Lutz. Mr Lutz, wooed out of retirement for his Midas touch, became convinced of the talents of Mr Simcoe and his small, Melbourne-based design team during his visits to the Holden outpost.

It was Mr Lutz who pushed for the production of the Holden Monaro coupe - a concept largely created after hours - and had it rebadged in North America as the Pontiac GTO.

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