With his foreign pair of eyes, the design head of Chinese carmaker Geely has a vision for a car with unique Chinese character that can be exported to compete with rivals in mature markets such as the United States.
“If you asked whether we can sell a car with Chinese details to an American customer one day, I think so,” said Peter Horbury, Geely Group’s senior vice-president for design. “Those cars that have some reflections of their original countries are the most interesting.”
Geely’s cars are currently exported to developing markets such the Middle East, Russia, Ukraine and South American countries, but not to some of the more developed markets as the quality is not yet sufficient to compete with well-established players.
“When we match the quality of foreign brands, we can go into their home counties and compete, even go into Europe and the US. That’s our ambition, and so we need design,” Horbury told the South China Moring Post at the Shanghai auto show.
Before becoming design head at Geely in 2012, Horbury oversaw the design of Ford’s premium brands including Volvo from 2002. In 2010, Ford sold the Volvo unit to China’s Geely.
GC9, the premium flagship car of Geely, is the first model designed by Horbury since he joined the Chinese carmaker from Volvo.
It’s an important model that marked a breakthrough for Geely from being a manufacturer of affordable cars to refined cars, while setting a new quality benchmark for its future products, Horbury said.