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" Another graduate of London&amp;#039;s Royal College of Art, Gerry&amp;#039;s career started at Chrysler working both in the UK and U.S. He then moved to Austin Rover where he penned the MGF and original Land Rover Freelander. He joined Ford in 1999 working on Lincoln-Mercury design before returning to the UK. He joined Land Rover in 2004.  Is this the biggest design challenge you&amp;#039;ve had so far in your career? Good question, they&amp;#039;re all challenges in different ways. You might argue that Evoque was the biggest challenge because that was taking Land Rover and making it something that it had never been before, where as this was a continuum. But the new Range Rover is the crown jewel, so you don&amp;#039;t mess with it, but at the same time if you go too far you dilute it. Don&amp;#039;t go far enough and you&amp;#039;re retrospective. So, probably, yes.  You created a new MG with the F, a new Lincoln range. These are all iconic vehicles and brands. How is this experiences different? The difference here is that the business is at such a pivotal point and we&amp;#039;re not just thinking about one car. This is about designing something that&amp;#039;s going to make a massive difference to the way the brand is going to be perceived with this whole new generation of vehicles. It has to be the right change in order for all those to follow.  Because you have very individual products, isn&amp;#039;t it true that they need very distinctive design language of their own but with a hidden message that links them together? Absolutely. When you look at the old Range Rover compared to the new one they are completely different, but it&amp;#039;s still clearly a Range Rover. You have Range Rover, Discovery and Defenders and in a future context a whole family of these. Each vehicle needs to have its own personality offering something different, all need to have design leadership and need to look like they came from the same stable. Some of the things that will drive that is luxury for Range Rover, leisure for Discovery so what&amp;#039;s the modern interpretation of the stepped roof or stadium seating or the way you stow things? Some of the functional attributes and the way you use the vehicle will drive the design to a degree.  Some people might comment that a car born out of a utility crossover is now more of a boulevard cruiser and that&amp;#039;s reflected in the flutes down the side and some of the lighting treatment. First of all the world has changed. What we had was a brand that had its roots in functionalism and as a consequence, a utilitarian visualisation of that was acceptable. There&amp;#039;s a move towards all terrain capability rather than off-road capability, it&amp;#039;s still extremely capable but the recognition that a lot of the buyers use them in every major city around the world, so on-road refinement is just as important. It&amp;#039;s competing in the luxury world and that demands certain levels of visual refinement, the use of high quality materials, all of those things are the price of entry into this luxury world. For me it&amp;#039;s almost like the guy in a beautifully tailored suit but underneath has a body as hard as nails.  There&amp;#039;s a vast array of personalisation, with the potential for some real horrors \u2013 how will you avoid that? That&amp;#039;s why we have designer choices and it&amp;#039;s configured in a way that doesn&amp;#039;t allow buyers to make a real howler. We have to offer more choice, people will always want the ability to put their own stamp on a car, but with the confidence it won&amp;#039;t screw up its essence and integrity.    Related posts:  5 Questions with Mark Adams \u2013 Executive Director, Global Cadillac &amp;amp;amp; Buick Design Driven: 2012 Land Rover Range Rover Evoque Land Rover Range_e hybrid  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/interviews/a9198/5-questions-gerry-mcgovern-land-rover-design-director-chief-creative-officer-38423/>