Latest / That Car Show / Stellantis' Scott Krugger, Head of North America Design

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Stellantis' Scott Krugger, Head of North America Design · That Car Show

• 0:00
  Scott, when you see these police chase videos on YouTube, you got
• 0:03
  to tell me there's a little pride in your heart right today
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  on that car show. It's Scott Krueger, head of
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  design for North America at the Stalantis.
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  From growing up obsessed with cars to pending the iconic 5th
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  generation Viper, we get into the gravity of guiding the
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  design of some of America's most legendary brands, including
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  Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and Ram, and the pride that comes with
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  seeing your creations perform as intended, even if that's
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  sometimes on YouTube. Often conversations with folks
• 0:39
  from the front office could be a little procedural.
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  That certainly was not the case with Scott.
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  He's the real deal and we really enjoyed talking with him.
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  It's Scott Krueger and it's that car show.
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  Welcome back to that car show. I'm Lindsay and I'm here with
• 0:56
  Ryan. And today we have a guest that
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  we are really excited to share with our audience.
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  We are joined by Scott Krueger, the Senior Vice President and
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  Head of North American Design for Stalantis.
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  Scott has spent 25 years in the Stilantis design organization,
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  which is incredibly impressive. His career has taken him from
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  Dodge and SRT to AR, Jeep, and Chrysler, among others.
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  He's also the man behind the iconic 5th generation Dodge
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  Viper. No big deal.
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  Prior to his current role, he served as Vice President of
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  Dodge SRT Design, overseeing all aspects of exterior styling for
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  Dodge passenger cars and utility vehicles in North America.
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  He also LED user experience design at the company's EMEA
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  design studio, which I'm really excited to hear about.
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  Today. He overseas the design direction
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  for four of North America's most iconic brands, Chrysler, Dodge,
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  Jeep and Ram Truck. We're excited here about what
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  it's like to design for brands with so much history and
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  personality, as well as where he sees the future of American
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  automotive design heading. And of course, we are going to
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  hear about some of the exciting new models coming our way.
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  Welcome, Scott. Thank you so much for joining us
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  today. Thank you.
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  Thank you. It's great to be here.
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  I appreciate it. Yeah, we are really excited to
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  talk to you, but before we get into all things related to your
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  job, we would love to hear a little bit more about how you
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  got here. Obviously you have an incredible
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  history with Stalantis, but were you always a car person?
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  Was it more design like? What was your path to joining
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  the organization and then getting to where you are today?
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  Yeah, no, I think, you know, my path was really, I was always a
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  kid that loved cars. I mean, it's just that's really
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  where I start. We can relate.
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  Yeah, No one didn't know anything about design, to be
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  honest with you. I learned about that probably
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  later in my my high school years.
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  I grew up in Erie, PA, so a town not close to any of the design
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  schools or anything like that as far as direct relations.
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  But yeah, it was just, I loved cars as a kid.
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  My dad was a car guy, never owned a lot of cars, you know, I
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  just know about the cars he's had that he's wrenched on as a
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  as a kid himself. But yeah, just, I loved cars and
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  I loved to draw. And actually, I was always good
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  at art. I was always into drawing
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  things, drawing monster trucks and stuff like that as a kid,
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  who knew once one day I'd be able to draw all these things
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  for a living. But.
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  The actual ones, yeah. Exactly.
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  But yeah, well, I think it was probably my, I think my
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  sophomore year, I think sophomore heading into junior
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  years when I, I stumbled on a college for creative studies
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  brochure. And in one of the art, one of my
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  art major classes, my, my art teacher was great.
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  She was very, up until that point, a lot of my art classes
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  were kind of kind of repetitive. You know, everybody kind of did
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  the same thing. But I had an art teacher.
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  She was, she kind of recognized everybody had different skills
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  and talents and you, she'd let you do a little bit about what
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  you wanted to do. And I don't know what, she just
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  knew something, but she put these brochures in front of me.
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  She had a cardboard box of brochures.
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  I started looking through and I'm like, you got to be kidding
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  me. Like car design.
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  This is nuts like. This is a real job everyday
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  like. So so that was one a fun one to
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  go home do and tell your, you know, ask your parents about
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  this, like, hey, check this out, you know, but yeah, I remember
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  you like I said, junior year, I probably started to really dig
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  into this, you know, this was kind of pre Internet times and
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  really, you know, you gotta call schools and start making things
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  and. Yeah, Brochures is such a
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  throwback. Exactly, exactly.
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  It's kind of dating myself here, but we.
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  Can all relate, but yeah there. Are I miss brochures right?
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  Yeah. Right, you know the best.
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  So that's what I found out about.
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  I went and visited CCS. It was great.
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  And then I went, I found out about Cleveland Institute of
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  Art, which was only about an hour and a half from my, my home
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  where I grew up. And it was a kind of like I got
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  to, I got to do this, you know, I started seeing all the
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  sketches on the walls. And it was a product design
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  school. So it was industrial design was
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  technically what I what I graduated with, which was like,
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  you know, car design, toy design, furniture design,
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  interior design, It was all aspects of design and cars was
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  like one of the things you could do.
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  So you kind of, you kind of had to do everything to get into the
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  fact that you could focus on cars.
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  But yeah, that's kind of how I got here.
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  I got got into, you know, my parents were super supportive.
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  You know, my dad was artistic. He just never found a path,
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  never knew there was careers in it.
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  So, yeah. So I, I think he was living, you
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  know, through me in this in this state.
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  But yeah, it was, it was great. It was then I, yeah.
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  The rest is history. I got a job at Chrysler.
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  I really wanted to work for for this company at the time.
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  And, you know, it's like, especially, you know, some of my
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  favorite cars growing up were Chrysler products.
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  I mean, the Viper was my dream car.
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  I remember seeing that thing for the first time back in, you
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  know, the early 90s. And it was just like, Oh my God,
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  this is nuts. I like, I want to know more, you
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  know, yeah, I didn't see a lot of those cars where I grew up
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  either. So.
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  So, yeah, to go to work for Chrysler was like dream come
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  true. If I have this opportunity.
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  What an amazing full circle moment.
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  I mean, were you just when you were put in charge of designing
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  the 5th Gen. Viper?
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  Was it a surreal moment for you? It, it was, yeah.
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  It was a, it was a wild time, too.
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  I mean, a million stories I could tell about that.
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  But it was, you know, during an era where.
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  We're listening. It was dying, you know, it was
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  like going away. I mean, it was, it was around
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  2009, 2010. We were we were sundowning the
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  Gen. 4, right. So it's kind of like the last
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  run of the Gen. fours. And I remember Ralph, Ralph
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  Shield, who's, you know, our boss and he he was at that time
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  he was, you know, Sergio Marchionne was here.
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  Ralph was part of the leadership team and you know, Vipers near
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  and dear to Ralph as well. So we kind of started to,
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  everyone started sketching quietly on us, very quietly to
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  the point where Ralph kind of LED this from the standpoint of,
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  Hey, let's start creating things.
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  Let's not get anything out in the open yet.
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  Let's just kind of keep the fire burning.
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  Sketching, sketching on the side, sketching at night.
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  Quite honestly, we were all doing our day jobs and doing
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  this on the side and to the point where we actually created
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  a locked room inside of the studio.
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  So it's almost a studio inside of the studio.
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  And it was kind of we just narrow it down to, you know,
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  there were several of us that kind of got narrowed down to the
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  the the main themes and we went even further.
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  And then my exterior with bits and pieces of other exteriors.
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  I mean, nothing's ever a a wholesale win, so to speak.
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  So it's always a collaboration, right?
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  Yeah, total collaboration always is.
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  If anyone tells you it is that they're lying.
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  But. Now we know the secret that's.
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  The truth exactly. But yeah, then we ended up
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  creating a model and we, I remember we put it in our design
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  Dome and Ralph told, you know, showed it to Sergio in a, in a
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  kind of a calm setting with just a few people and and the rest is
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  history. Be green, kind of green lighted
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  the idea of continuing with the project.
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  And and that's how the Gen. 5 Viper pretty much was born.
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  So yeah, it was dream come true, Mom.
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  I mean, it was like, you got it getting me.
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  There's no way I'm going to be able to design this car.
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  This is like a truly a a dream come true till I'm like, I
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  don't, I don't believe it till it actually hits the road, you
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  know? Yeah, so.
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  I mean, you nailed it. I mean, that was the complete
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  car, right? That's the one we all want.
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  You know, the first one was the icon, but you walked that line
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  of I, I think, you know, not alienating the existing fans,
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  but really attracting new folks. And I got to say thank you, give
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  a shout out to your art teacher. I'm a son of an art teacher.
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  And she listens and she's going to get a kick out of that, That,
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  that, that, that, that person, that that individual, you know,
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  changed the trajectory of your life.
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  Absolutely. I mean, you never know.
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  You never know him. They it's like I, I still
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  remember her, you know, back in the day.
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  I mean, she really, she saw something and I didn't even see
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  it. I didn't even know, you know, at
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  the time. And so, yeah, people, they,
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  they, they, they don't know their potential of how they can
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  steer somebody's path. So.
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  Right, the impact. Not to give birth, not out.
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  It cannot be understated, right? I mean, because look at
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  obviously the impact on your life directly, but the entire
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  car world because of what you've gone on to create is tremendous
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  like that's. Thank you.
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  She really, she gave all of us a gift.
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  What what's that like, Scott? Like, you know, here you are
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  being the steward of these of these models and these brands,
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  right? Dodge, Jeep, Ram, I mean,
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  that's, that's pretty heavy, right?
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  You alluded it, you know to it earlier, but here you are.
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  I mean, what's that like? No, it's, it's, I don't take it
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  lightly, quite truthfully. I mean, I, you know, I think of
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  the the Viper story as one aspect of it.
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  But you know, to your point about the history of that car,
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  for me meant more than me being a part of it.
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  You know, it's like it was yeah, I always look at it.
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  What I have, I feel like a responsibility I have to this
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  company and these brands is that it's like I I'm hoping that I
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  leave it better than, you know, I kind of leave it better than
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  when I got it right. And I think that that that's why
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  I respect these brands because there's so much history.
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  I mean, Jeep, Jeep alone, I mean, it's unreal.
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  So, you know, really, really understanding the brands, really
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  understanding the customers. And I always remind ourselves,
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  like I, I'm also a customer, right?
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  It's like I, it's, it's all about everything we design is
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  about the customer. I think design at times is a
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  little bit, sometimes we can get lost in the, you know, this kind
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  of love affair with design and this and that.
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  But it's like we all come down to the customer and the product
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  and the brand. But if we're not doing right by
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  those brands, you're not doing right by the customer.
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  So, so, yeah, it is, it is heavy.
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  I mean, I, I don't take that lightly at all.
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  And for me, it is about truly understanding how do we make
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  these brands continue, how do we make them better?
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  How do we make the product better.
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  And that really is by truly listening to what people want,
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  you know, and when, where we should take it and where, what
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  we should preserve, what we should also turn the page up,
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  you know, turn the page on and move forward from.
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  I think there's some as well. But yeah, it's, it's, it's a
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  responsibility. But I, I love it.
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  I mean, it's, it's, it's there's no dull day, that's for sure.
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  That's, I mean, that's what we all want, right?
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  Well, and I think you touched on your customer base.
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  I think Jeep especially has a particularly passionate audience
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  and fanbase. You know who are going to be,
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  you're going to hear from them obviously, if they think the
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  design is not in keeping with the history or something.
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  But I mean, it's so much fun to see all the personality,
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  especially in the Wranglers, you know, like what they do with
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  them and taking them out off the road, off road and actually
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  using them, you know, the way they're designed is so much fun.
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  I am a UX writer in automotive and so that caught my attention.
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  How do you, that was always an interesting challenge for me of
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  we know what we want the experience to be in the car, but
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  how do we deliver that with writing?
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  And for you, it's with the design, the physical design of
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  the car. So what's the thought process
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  like for you of, OK, this is how we want people to feel.
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  This is what we want the experience to be when they see
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  the car, when they're in it. How do you translate that to the
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  physical design of the cars? Yeah, I think, you know, you say
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  something, the UX aspect, it's like a lot of times, you know,
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  we remind each other UX is user experience.
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  It's sometimes we take it as like user screens.
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  Yeah. And it's like it's not user
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  screens, it's the experience of the whole car, the way the
• 13:02
  interior, the exterior, everything plays together, the
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  functionality. Also the infotainment is part of
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  it. But yeah, I think it's just
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  really true to understanding, like, what do people do with
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  this product? What do they actually, what do
• 13:14
  they value and what don't they care about?
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  Some things we also have to realize, like it's not all about
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  having more and more and more. Sometimes it's about having more
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  focus and designing around the really, you know, the very
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  important aspects of that product.
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  And, and some things could be just let's not focus on the
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  things they don't care about from a customer standpoint.
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  Don't put extra content in the car if they don't care about it
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  and leave it, leave it to the side.
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  So. Right.
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  Don't use the resources on something that's going to be a
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  distraction rather than add to the experience.
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  Exactly, exactly. So, and you said it best, it's
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  like go do what they do with the product.
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  And that's something that we do a lot in this office because we
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  have such iconic brands. When you talk about Ramjeep and
• 14:00
  Dodge and even Chrysler, it's like this idea that there's so
• 14:03
  much, there's so many use cases and so many examples of people,
• 14:06
  real people and real uses that they have and real needs.
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  So we have a, you know, we all kind of, you know, drive what we
• 14:14
  build here. And I think that's a that's a
• 14:16
  really important factor. You know, our Jeep designers go
• 14:18
  out to Moab every year and they experience, you know, taking
• 14:21
  them out on the trails and in some case breaking them, you
• 14:24
  know, and understanding the, the pitfalls of what you got to do
• 14:27
  to deal with, you know, fixing them or making it easy enough
• 14:30
  to, to have the, you know, the engineers there to work on them
• 14:33
  and things like that. So it's living and breathing it,
• 14:37
  you know, towing the, the ram designers go and they, they
• 14:40
  practice, you know, towing fifth wheels and, you know, towing
• 14:44
  some of them are race, you guys at race and they tow their
• 14:46
  vehicles with trailers and everything.
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  So it's understanding like, you know, the the the experience of
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  that, how we can make it better from the way we design the
• 14:54
  layout of an interior. So yeah, I think a lot of it's
• 14:58
  just, you know, listening, but it's also doing, you know,
• 15:01
  experiencing for yourself. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
• 15:05
  And you mentioned using the products.
• 15:07
  We were talking briefly before we started recording.
• 15:10
  I got to drive AT Rex Truck last week and you mentioned that that
• 15:14
  is what you are currently enjoying.
• 15:16
  So, you know, maybe you can talk a little bit about the truck and
• 15:20
  I don't know if you were involved in that design, but
• 15:22
  just your thoughts and what it's like to drive the, you know,
• 15:27
  ultimate, you know, end product of your work.
• 15:31
  No, it's that, that's First off, I love the damn thing.
• 15:34
  It's it's, it's a beast. It's.
• 15:35
  Just a beast. We were both waxing lyrical
• 15:38
  about how wonderful they. Are oh, that's so awesome.
• 15:40
  I mean, like, like, and I just smile with products like that
• 15:43
  because sure, I always say like only we can make products like
• 15:47
  that. And I think that's that's
• 15:48
  something that is the mojo when we see that and we can create
• 15:52
  that stuff. It's it's the ultimate just
• 15:57
  high. You know, it's it's it's
• 15:59
  incredible. Yeah, I bet.
• 16:01
  Yeah, it's just blast. I mean, it's it's, you know, in
• 16:07
  a lot of the products I was able to work on, I guess throughout
• 16:10
  my time here, it's probably the most rewarding thing that you
• 16:14
  can experience is to see somebody that actually bought
• 16:17
  the product, right. I mean, like we're, we're
• 16:19
  fortunate enough here that we can borrow them, drive them, get
• 16:23
  lease cars through the companies and whatnot.
• 16:25
  I think there's, there's a lot of opportunities we have to, to
• 16:29
  enjoy them. But you got to remind, you know,
• 16:32
  we remind each other here. It's like that's probably one of
• 16:35
  the second biggest purchases people can make next to a home.
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  So, you know, make sure you understand that you take that
• 16:42
  with some some weight and some some heavy responsibility to
• 16:47
  make sure that you're really doing right by the customer and
• 16:50
  there's nothing more rewarding. You know, it's like I worked in
• 16:53
  concept cars in my in my past and what not.
• 16:55
  They're fun because they there's, you know, you can do
• 16:57
  whatever you want and sense. But when you actually see the
• 17:01
  product, you help design and and worked on and see the things
• 17:07
  that people love about it and and you know that you spent a
• 17:10
  lot of time and effort at the same time, there's things that
• 17:13
  you experience. You see people that use things
• 17:15
  or don't care about the things that you kind of cared about.
• 17:18
  That's also eye opening too. And you got to you got to
• 17:20
  remember that when you're designing the next round of
• 17:22
  products. But that's, that's honestly,
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  that was the biggest thing for me was to see one of my first
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  like full real designs. Seeing people driving them
• 17:34
  around and and spending their hard earned money on them.
• 17:37
  That's like that. That's awesome.
• 17:38
  That's a good feeling. Yeah.
• 17:40
  Loving and enjoying it, you know?
• 17:41
  Yeah. Yeah, that's really cool.
• 17:43
  Yeah. I mean, that is that's the
• 17:44
  ultimate compliment is seeing somebody because it is such a
• 17:46
  big commitment for so many families to commit to something
• 17:49
  that you helped create is that's got to be a pretty amazing
• 17:52
  feeling. It is, it is a tough comparison
• 17:55
  of everything too, You know, it's like.
• 17:58
  On top of everything else too, you're designing, you know,
• 18:00
  automotive legislation and regulation seems to be in
• 18:03
  constant flux these days, right? How do you guys keep up?
• 18:06
  You know, you're the people that are actually designing right to
• 18:09
  these ever changing rules. I think of the charger off hand,
• 18:12
  but what's what's that been like lately?
• 18:15
  Yeah, it's a it's a challenge. I mean, that's how we say
• 18:17
  there's a difference between style and design, right?
• 18:20
  And I say that because style I think is it's easy.
• 18:24
  And I say easy in a way because it's, it's the art of it, it's
• 18:29
  fun, it's personal, it's, it's, it's your, it's style is kind of
• 18:34
  face value, right? And design is about creating
• 18:38
  something that actually is meaning creating something that
• 18:40
  actually solves a, a problem. So I think that a car is like we
• 18:45
  talked about product design, car is the ultimate product because
• 18:48
  it has so many products within it, right?
• 18:50
  It's kind of a an assemblage of a lot of different products and
• 18:53
  a lot of different problems within it.
• 18:56
  So yeah, the legislation and the things that come our way, I I,
• 19:01
  it's just it, we're kind of used to it.
• 19:03
  You know, it kind of comes in. There's all kinds of different
• 19:05
  challenges every every year it's something different or something
• 19:08
  let's up and there's a different challenge that comes in.
• 19:12
  Yeah. I just think it's just part of
• 19:13
  the nature of design. You know, it's also the same for
• 19:17
  the engineering team. I think they feel they feel the
• 19:19
  same way. It's just problems to solve and
• 19:22
  figure out and and we're all in the same game as well, you know,
• 19:25
  and you look at the the market around us.
• 19:28
  I mean, all the other companies were all challenged with the
• 19:30
  same tasks. So I, I enjoy it, you know,
• 19:35
  it's, it's fun. It was easy.
• 19:37
  It would just be easy and it. Well, that's a good point,
• 19:41
  Scott. I just got back from a week on
• 19:42
  the Colorado Grand. I don't know if you know about
• 19:44
  the Colorado Grand. It's 1000 miles in 1916 older
• 19:47
  cars. And we sit around, we talk about
• 19:48
  how beautiful these cars are. Well, yeah, that's because they
• 19:50
  could do whatever they wanted. Right.
• 19:52
  You know, it's amazing to me that you all design cars that
• 19:55
  are as beautiful as they are now, right?
• 19:57
  They're beautiful, they're functional.
• 19:59
  They're, you know, you're conforming to all these rules
• 20:01
  and regulations. It's kind of a miracle anything
• 20:03
  gets built, isn't it? I mean.
• 20:04
  Yeah, probably 50 years old now. We'll be looking back and
• 20:07
  they'll be let's do it easy back then.
• 20:11
  Right, right. So.
• 20:14
  You get a. Lot of credit, yeah.
• 20:16
  So for someone who has never been inside an automotive design
• 20:20
  studio, can you kind of like give us a peek behind the
• 20:24
  curtain of what your like, what your job overall or what your
• 20:28
  typical day looks like? I'm sure there are no typical
• 20:30
  days. Not really.
• 20:32
  Especially like given how design has changed from when you
• 20:37
  started to now. Yeah, I'd say, I mean, it's, you
• 20:42
  know, typical day. I mean the studios are, I'd say
• 20:45
  the, the, the anatomy of a studio, I guess if you will, is
• 20:49
  we have interior and exterior sitting together, different
• 20:51
  designers that work together every day.
• 20:54
  They're studio engineers that work hand in hand with them.
• 20:58
  You know, we have plates, big large plates with big clay
• 21:01
  models and you know, all the different products within the
• 21:03
  studios or the, the brand and the studios are branded.
• 21:06
  So we have, you know, Chrysler Jeep Ram down the down the
• 21:10
  hallway. We have a very open format.
• 21:13
  It's still Lantis. I mean, with our brands, we're
• 21:15
  our office is very collaborative.
• 21:17
  You know, it's like we we don't shut off a brand where it's like
• 21:21
  you're this brand, you're not that brand.
• 21:22
  So stay out. It's it's more of just good
• 21:25
  ideas, good, good harmony, good, good flow to get people to
• 21:30
  understand what's going on around them.
• 21:32
  But yeah, the studio really is a, it's our office, especially
• 21:35
  post COVID, it's kind of become a bit of a hub for all the
• 21:39
  disciplines within the company. So it's like our, our offices
• 21:42
  have actually really been more, we've never been more
• 21:45
  collaborative with having engineering in there, finance
• 21:50
  teams. I mean, it's like really there's
• 21:52
  nothing better than being around the product.
• 21:55
  Even if people aren't necessarily car people, the
• 21:58
  easiest side of it, they are in their own way, right.
• 22:01
  It's like the, you know, between the brand team and the design
• 22:05
  team and the, you know, the product development teams and
• 22:08
  engineering and, and the financial teams.
• 22:11
  I mean, we all have to be into the thing we're working on.
• 22:14
  We have to at least understand it really deeply to make sure
• 22:18
  we're making the right moves for the product.
• 22:20
  But that's a constant everyday type of interaction that's
• 22:26
  happening and at different levels, at all levels, whether
• 22:29
  you're designer that started yesterday or you're, you know,
• 22:33
  somebody likes me, like me, who's been here for for quite a
• 22:35
  while a little bit. We're interacting, yeah, we're
• 22:37
  all interacting with our our counterparts at, at the the
• 22:40
  various levels. But yeah, we can't make car.
• 22:44
  You can't make cars in isolation.
• 22:45
  You really can't make products in isolation.
• 22:47
  So I love that. Yeah.
• 22:50
  Well, and it's true. Like you said, I think when the
• 22:53
  passion is there, it shows through in the product.
• 22:55
  Like it's very evident. And it's when it's a cohesive
• 22:58
  organization, you see that or you don't see that.
• 23:02
  You mentioned clay being a part of things.
• 23:04
  And I know I've talked to other designers who have seen the
• 23:07
  evolution where that was, you know, a primary part of every
• 23:11
  step. And now that has changed with
• 23:14
  the incorporation of, you know, computer assisted design and now
• 23:19
  AI even. So can you talk about kind of
• 23:22
  the evolution and like how, how do you still incorporate all of
• 23:26
  those things into your design process?
• 23:29
  Yeah, actually we, you know, I always say it's like our toolbox
• 23:32
  of tools, right? It's like we we keep adding a
• 23:34
  new one in and using it for different reasons, you know,
• 23:38
  whether it's sketching on a piece of paper, like the old
• 23:41
  school ways. We still do that.
• 23:44
  We use a ton of digital tools. I mean, the virtual reality
• 23:48
  goggles, we use a lot of a lot of virtual reality, even just
• 23:56
  visualization the way we're using, you know, looking at data
• 23:58
  on a screen, but nothing, nothing substitutes clay yet
• 24:03
  nothing substitutes a physical thing.
• 24:06
  But I will say that those other tools, I think the key to those
• 24:10
  are just to get to a solution or get to a kind of a direction
• 24:16
  sooner, right? Even AI, we're using tons of AI
• 24:19
  and I know it like some of the designers like we don't use that
• 24:22
  and we use it more for communication tool, right.
• 24:26
  So if you think about what AI really is in the context that we
• 24:29
  use it, it's it's if I had a pencil sketch right now, I could
• 24:33
  show it to one of my colleagues or somebody in the design
• 24:36
  studio, and they would be able to look at that and understand
• 24:38
  exactly what what I'm trying to visually communicate.
• 24:42
  But others in the company, different levels of leadership
• 24:45
  and other disciplines may see that and be like, I don't know
• 24:47
  what the hell you're showing me here.
• 24:48
  Yeah. So what is this?
• 24:49
  Help me understand this. Yeah, Help me understand it.
• 24:52
  So I think what's what the AI tools are doing for us is be
• 24:54
  able to come to a visual description very quickly that
• 24:58
  really visually renders what we want.
• 25:01
  It's it's a great communication tool.
• 25:03
  So if we can communicate among the, the, the ranks at all
• 25:07
  levels to say, hey, this is what we want to do, I think we can
• 25:11
  rally behind something quicker. And the sooner we can make
• 25:13
  decisions, the sooner we can execute.
• 25:15
  And in, in go, you know, so I think that's really, that's
• 25:19
  really where the tools come in and really have the highest
• 25:23
  level of impact. And like I said, AI, it's like
• 25:26
  it is about prompting, it's about trying to manage it, but
• 25:30
  it's really the idea is that the designer's vision still wants to
• 25:34
  come through regardless of the tools they're using.
• 25:37
  It's really the tools are, are truly just that it's a, it's a
• 25:40
  tool to kind of accelerate your visual communication of your
• 25:44
  idea and the execution of the idea quite truthfully.
• 25:48
  So it's, it's tools are fantastic.
• 25:50
  I mean, you just got to use them in the right way.
• 25:53
  Yeah, it sounds like a valuable resource that helps you sort of
• 25:56
  streamline and keep the process, like make it more efficient,
• 26:01
  which is fantastic because then you're using your resources well
• 26:04
  and everybody wins. More efficiency means more
• 26:07
  ideas. More ideas means cooler cars.
• 26:10
  Yeah. Price.
• 26:11
  Yeah, yeah. So you mentioned the virtual
• 26:14
  reality goggles. Can you tell for those?
• 26:16
  I actually got to experience those in an automotive design
• 26:19
  studio this summer and I was blown away partly because you
• 26:22
  can sit in the car, yes, as it's being designed.
• 26:26
  So can you talk a little bit like for those that aren't
• 26:29
  familiar, talk a little bit about what they are and how you
• 26:31
  incorporate them, like what it has meant for the design process
• 26:35
  at Stilantis? Yeah, we use them in different
• 26:37
  ways, but the primary use I'd say at this point is when we put
• 26:42
  like, we'll create data, we'll create a sketch and then we'll
• 26:45
  pick a sketch and then we'll start building it in 3D data and
• 26:50
  then we'll render it in a way that you can see the the goggles
• 26:54
  that we use. I mean, sometimes they're Apple
• 26:55
  pros, sometimes there are other things, I mean, different types
• 26:58
  of tools that we have, but be able to render that data in a
• 27:02
  way that you could still see the pass through.
• 27:04
  So I could still see the room, I could still see people around
• 27:07
  me, but you're seeing an object spatially that's there.
• 27:11
  For instance, we'll we'll talk about an interior.
• 27:15
  We'll create a very basic buck the you could sit in and there's
• 27:19
  a steering wheel and it's very crude, very rudimentary, maybe
• 27:22
  it's made of plywood or metal and whatnot.
• 27:24
  And it's, it's very simple, but it gives you the ability to sit
• 27:28
  there and to project the actual data of the, of the design that
• 27:32
  you want, or at least you want to view.
• 27:35
  You know, we talk about user experience, we talk about like
• 27:37
  the screen layout or, or some of the reach zones, things that
• 27:41
  that matter. It's like we can really quickly
• 27:43
  get an idea of that super early in the process, right?
• 27:48
  So instead of continued to, you know, really developing
• 27:50
  something to the to the NTH degree and having to mill it in
• 27:53
  clay or do it make a hard model of it of sorts.
• 27:57
  It's a way to get this stuff really quickly visualized to be
• 28:01
  able to sit behind it. You can have somebody else in a
• 28:03
  set of goggles next to you and you're able to really kind of
• 28:07
  spatially experience an interior very powerful, you know, very
• 28:11
  powerful. So you can make decisions
• 28:13
  quickly. You can you can understand if
• 28:15
  this makes sense. This idea is good, it's bad,
• 28:18
  whatever it may be, but it's it's very powerful.
• 28:21
  And even an exterior, you do an exterior design, you you see it
• 28:26
  through and actually you can have whether another product
• 28:30
  sitting next to it on the floor, a real car, then you can compare
• 28:34
  that against a virtual car and they look great.
• 28:37
  I mean, you could really get an understanding of what we're, you
• 28:40
  know, what you're talking about, what you're trying to solve and
• 28:42
  what you're trying to try and do kind of compare.
• 28:44
  So yeah, it's a lot of a lot of great tools.
• 28:47
  I mean, it's really powerful. Stuff, Yeah.
• 28:49
  That's amazing. I love the idea that it lets you
• 28:52
  like if there is something that needs to be adjusted like you
• 28:54
  mentioned reach zones, you can test that immediately.
• 28:58
  Exactly. And you haven't built like you
• 29:00
  said, like a full clay model, gone to all that trouble at time
• 29:03
  and everything. You can fix it so that it's
• 29:05
  right when you do that. Yes, I mean even just down to,
• 29:09
  you know, a side mirror in in location and you know, a
• 29:13
  different design or or making sure that the visibility is good
• 29:17
  on on something or we want to see what the hood looks like.
• 29:20
  I mean Viper is a great example. It's like what does the hood
• 29:23
  look like? Not looking at it from the
• 29:24
  outside, but looking over from the the cockpit right, that's
• 29:30
  the experience like I want to see that massive hood, you know,
• 29:33
  and how does that look from the driver's seat?
• 29:35
  So things like that that are just fun.
• 29:37
  You want to be able to experience it quickly and make
• 29:39
  changes on the outside to make sure they look good from the
• 29:42
  inside. So.
• 29:44
  That's. Pretty cool.
• 29:45
  Is retro design well, so retro design is something that slants
• 29:48
  has done really well over the years right You know the Viper
• 29:51
  leaned into that a bit There was the PT cruiser.
• 29:53
  I mean I think we're about the same age.
• 29:55
  I mean the the new beetle was a big deal when we were younger
• 29:58
  right? Is that dead or will you know?
• 30:02
  Are we always going to want to mine the past for design I, I.
• 30:06
  Think like, you know, there's retro, which is like truly
• 30:11
  trying to recreate the past. But I think there's also like,
• 30:15
  you know, for instance, when I look at the charger, the, the,
• 30:18
  the current charger we designed, it was less about being retro,
• 30:22
  more about being kind of your mind's eye of the history.
• 30:25
  That was kind of like we, we, we started that design with this
• 30:29
  idea that like some people wanted to get an old charger, 68
• 30:33
  charger in the studio and they're like, you don't want it
• 30:37
  to be like, I don't want to be line for line.
• 30:39
  Let's try to recreate that. Let's go down to the Heritage
• 30:43
  Center. Let's go look, spend some time,
• 30:45
  soak up the history. And it's one of those things
• 30:48
  when you see the design, if you know, you know, you see the
• 30:51
  history, it's like plain as day. It's like, Oh yeah, that's a 68
• 30:54
  charger vibe. I see it, you know, But those
• 30:56
  that don't know that are like, hey, that's just a modern car.
• 30:59
  You know, that's just a beautiful modern car.
• 31:01
  That's what that's what we hope that they see.
• 31:03
  So I think there's always going to be that kind of, you know,
• 31:06
  kind of homage to the history. How do you how do you have the
• 31:08
  right balance of that Gen. 5 Viper?
• 31:11
  We felt that way. It was like we love the original
• 31:15
  GTS coupe. So there was so much so many of
• 31:17
  us that were in love with that car that who are we to try to
• 31:20
  make like make something different, you know, from the
• 31:22
  standpoint of something that feels in the family.
• 31:27
  But it's that kind of it's got the essence of it, but it's not
• 31:30
  the car, you know, it's not trying to make that car over
• 31:33
  again. It's just trying to respect it
• 31:35
  and to do a new design, a new, a new lineage of that car that
• 31:40
  everybody that knows the car is like, Oh yeah, that's a Viper
• 31:42
  man. That's got Viper to the core.
• 31:45
  But it's new, it's different, it's modern, it's got different
• 31:47
  treatments, different surface language in certain areas.
• 31:50
  It is a different proportion if you look at them compared,
• 31:53
  compared side by side. So I think that the retro aspect
• 31:57
  is about when you have historical brands and you have a
• 32:01
  really, you know, just a love affair with these brands from a
• 32:04
  customer standpoint. That's the way it's like, hey,
• 32:06
  let's not forget about the history, Let's not forget about
• 32:09
  the past. You don't have to recreate it,
• 32:11
  but I think you always want to have a, a look back to say, hey,
• 32:14
  are we are we respecting the lineage of this brand?
• 32:17
  Like I said, it's like, that's the, that's the arrogance you
• 32:21
  don't want to have when you have these amazing brands.
• 32:23
  Like, like, let's just, you know, let's respect it and bring
• 32:25
  it through. Unless you're like, hey, we got
• 32:27
  to completely throw this brand's history out the wind.
• 32:29
  Again, new. It's like, that's one thing.
• 32:32
  But Russ, it was about just really truly respecting the past
• 32:36
  and trying to be the shepherds of, hey, let's, let's make sure
• 32:39
  we we make this brand better with the time we're spending
• 32:43
  with it, you know? Yeah.
• 32:45
  That's got to be a really interesting design challenge is
• 32:49
  how do you take something and make the natural evolution of it
• 32:54
  come to life while also kind of respecting and preserving the
• 32:57
  history. But like you said, not just
• 32:58
  doing a direct copy either. You want to keep it fresh and
• 33:03
  that they're like still interest is good at that.
• 33:06
  Ford has had one or two where, you know, immediately the new
• 33:09
  car, you can see the history, but it is also its own thing.
• 33:14
  And I think that is the mark of a really successful design team.
• 33:17
  And you guys have done that multiple times.
• 33:20
  So kudos to you. Yeah.
• 33:21
  Thank you. Yeah, I mean, the charger's an
• 33:23
  example of like, the interior's completely different.
• 33:25
  There's no, there's zero connection.
• 33:28
  And that was by designer like, hey, let's make the interior
• 33:30
  extremely radical, almost a bit of the shock to the system when
• 33:34
  somebody gets sent. Yeah.
• 33:35
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, this was a charger.
• 33:38
  You get in, you're like, oh man, I walked into this thing and it
• 33:40
  just inside, you know, so we deliver wanted to be further so.
• 33:45
  I got to talk about my first time behind the wheel of one of
• 33:47
  the new Chargers. I was with some friends.
• 33:49
  We were I'm based in Denver. We took our sports cars.
• 33:52
  We ended up in Aspen and there's a place down there called the
• 33:55
  Woody Creek Tavern. This is where Hunter S Thompson
• 33:58
  used to hang Outback in the day. So it's very much like a a place
• 34:02
  for the locals to hang out and what's otherwise a very Shishi
• 34:04
  town, right? And we roll in, it's about 1:00
• 34:07
  in the afternoon and there are three guys at the bar and
• 34:09
  they're giving a shit about our Porsches and stuff, you know,
• 34:12
  and, and then. You are.
• 34:15
  The woman behind the bar, never been in this place in my life.
• 34:17
  Been in there all the 5 minutes, you know, 2 sips of beer and the
• 34:20
  woman behind the bar says, you got to drive my new car.
• 34:24
  And she throws her keys on the, on the bar.
• 34:26
  And it was a new charger. And I had, I had never driven 1.
• 34:29
  And I, I, I, I thought maybe there was a hidden camera
• 34:32
  somewhere, right? You know this.
• 34:33
  But she was so proud of that car and said, you know, I know you
• 34:37
  rolled in with some Porsches, but you're going to love this.
• 34:39
  And I, I got in that car and it was awesome.
• 34:42
  And it was a very different car, obviously than a, than a Porsche
• 34:45
  or whatever. But I got in, you know, you got
• 34:46
  the square wheel, you've got the, the, the big body.
• 34:49
  It was powerful. She told me to, to peel out.
• 34:52
  It was such a surreal. Experience.
• 34:56
  But she loved this car so much and I really enjoyed it too.
• 34:59
  I thought it was awesome. And you know, the fact that you
• 35:02
  can make such an impression on someone like that, that someone
• 35:05
  is so proud of that car. And I think you nailed that
• 35:07
  formula just right, because you had to push that design forward,
• 35:10
  right? You had to right.
• 35:11
  In the charger. People love the charger, right?
• 35:14
  That that must have been kind of a hot potato, right?
• 35:16
  To, to, to move that one forward.
• 35:20
  Yeah. Tell, can you talk to us a bit
• 35:22
  about that? Because I think it was
• 35:24
  originally designed was going to be an EV, right?
• 35:26
  Yeah, we designed it. We have both.
• 35:29
  I mean, it's both actually. We started that program and I,
• 35:33
  you know, I worked on the last Gen. charger as well.
• 35:35
  So it's like for me to see that that line of cars that we were
• 35:40
  able to do, you know, we started the the original, I should say
• 35:43
  original charger, the original modern era, modern era charger.
• 35:47
  You know, it's like going A4 door.
• 35:48
  It's like, Oh my God, they're going to a four door charger.
• 35:50
  What's going, you know, back in what, 2000 and, and the, the
• 35:54
  lineage of that car was incredible because, you know,
• 35:58
  the last versions of those cars with the wide bodies and they
• 36:01
  were just nasty cars, you know? Oh God, yeah.
• 36:04
  In the best way. Yeah.
• 36:06
  Yeah, A. Green.
• 36:07
  Scat pack done. Exactly, exactly.
• 36:10
  The Hellcats and the, you know, the red eyes and all that stuff.
• 36:13
  I mean, it was like by the, the life cycle of that car took on a
• 36:16
  whole different life of its own that we'd really never even
• 36:19
  envisioned or imagined from the beginning.
• 36:23
  But yeah, it was, it was no small feat.
• 36:25
  I mean, when we worked on a new one, there were a lot of a lot
• 36:28
  of challenges. I'd say one of which was, hey,
• 36:32
  we, we got to face reality making an EV and we kind of took
• 36:36
  that on to say, hey, let's, let's just own it.
• 36:39
  Let's just make the EV thing. Let's make it.
• 36:42
  How do we make it as Dodge as we can, knowing by the way, that we
• 36:46
  were going to do both a Bev and an ICE version of the car, but
• 36:50
  we knew that it was going to launch as a Bev first.
• 36:52
  So that was a challenge, right? It's like we got the hardcore
• 36:55
  core loyal fans right. We're gonna piss a lot of people
• 36:59
  off. They're.
• 37:00
  Gonna be skeptical at best, yeah.
• 37:02
  Exactly. All things considered, the car
• 37:04
  is an awesome EV. It's just that's if you want an
• 37:07
  EV, right? Right, I got to drive one last
• 37:10
  week and I have to say it had me at this sparkly purple paint.
• 37:15
  It's a purple haze. I think we just came.
• 37:16
  Yes, it was spectacular. So can you talk a little bit
• 37:21
  about the Super Bee because you're talking about, you know,
• 37:24
  the new one. And so I'd love to hear more
• 37:26
  about that too. Yeah.
• 37:27
  So when, well, then transitioning into the ICE
• 37:31
  versions coming out, you know, we get the the six pack in the
• 37:36
  car and you get the the the turbo 6.
• 37:39
  I mean, it's it's a totally different animal, right?
• 37:41
  I mean, it's a it's a beast. It's an awesome car.
• 37:44
  It's you know, everybody, we know what everybody's wanting.
• 37:46
  Everybody wants that V8. But it's like that Super Bee
• 37:49
  came out. You know, it's it's I think 600
• 37:53
  horsepower just came. It's an awesome car.
• 37:55
  It's it's just an awesome car. Hardly.
• 37:58
  Seems like enough. Yeah, I know exactly.
• 38:01
  Especially when you end it. I think the end, the last
• 38:03
  generation ended its life at what was it?
• 38:06
  Was it 797? I think we had. 8 sounds right.
• 38:09
  It was 7. Something like that.
• 38:11
  So yeah, so there's room to grow for sure.
• 38:14
  But yeah, it's the the Super B is an awesome car.
• 38:17
  I mean, the six packs, when we we started showing those and and
• 38:21
  getting those out into the world and people are driving those and
• 38:23
  they're people are loving them. They're just once again, it's a
• 38:27
  different animal, right? It's you know, and you got, you
• 38:30
  got the coming out of the V eights and you got this, you got
• 38:33
  the Bevs and now we got the 6 packs and who knows where the
• 38:37
  future will will take us, But you know, charging a long life
• 38:41
  as it's been and this role as well.
• 38:43
  So yeah. Yeah, yeah.
• 38:46
  And the Recon, the Jeep Recon is another one probably face
• 38:49
  similar challenges with, right, because you were trying to
• 38:51
  please a lot of masters there. Yeah, Recon's an awesome car.
• 38:55
  I mean, what we're super excited about that thing.
• 38:56
  I, I think that I think that car is going to be successful.
• 39:01
  I think the it's a Bev, it's an awesome car to drive.
• 39:06
  So I highly recommend if you have an opportunity to drive
• 39:08
  one, drive one. If you see Scott Brown again,
• 39:11
  hit him up for. Yes, hello.
• 39:13
  Scott Yeah. It's it's cool.
• 39:15
  We're going. To need 2.
• 39:16
  Yeah, exactly. It's it's an awesome car because
• 39:19
  it's full Jeep, right? It's full on.
• 39:20
  It's a true Jeep. You know, all the doors come off
• 39:23
  the roof sides open that the windows come out.
• 39:26
  I mean, it's got all the Jeepness that that one could
• 39:28
  want and it's it's a it's a great car to drive.
• 39:32
  I mean, honestly, it's the best Bev that that on this, you know,
• 39:36
  this side of the company in this region.
• 39:38
  I think that we're that we're we've done so and that will have
• 39:41
  a life that will live beyond what it is too.
• 39:44
  I mean, so it's that's going to, we're going to have a lot of
• 39:47
  opportunities throughout the life cycle of that vehicle to
• 39:49
  have a lot of fun with it. Yes, yes.
• 39:51
  I think that is the vehicle a lot of us need.
• 39:54
  Yeah, right. I mean it, it checks off a lot
• 39:56
  of boxes for a lot of it does. It's a combination of a lot of
• 39:59
  like the best of all worlds. I mean it's an all electric
• 40:02
  trail rated Jeep like that is talk about new frontiers, brand
• 40:06
  new world, you know, especially and Jeep has such a recognizable
• 40:10
  design language as we've said. How did you approach that?
• 40:14
  Like creating an all EV Jeep that can go off road but also
• 40:18
  just immediately reads as a Jeep?
• 40:20
  Yeah. I mean, I think that's really
• 40:22
  what we try to do with all of our products is like brand
• 40:25
  first, right? It's like it's about the brand
• 40:28
  propulsions, propulsion, right. So it's like we we've said we
• 40:32
  didn't want to make whether it's a Bev or an ICE.
• 40:35
  It's not about making it look like the powertrain, it's about
• 40:38
  making it look and feel like the product of the brand you're
• 40:42
  trying to represent. That's why the Charger was, you
• 40:45
  know what it was and as we created the Bev and the Recon,
• 40:49
  the same thing. It's like let's make a Jeep
• 40:51
  first and a Dodge 1st and then propulsion is a choice like we
• 40:54
  can, we could put different propulsion systems in those cars
• 40:57
  as we're showing with with charge.
• 41:00
  So I think the key is make the branded product you want to make
• 41:04
  that is truly representing attributes of that brand.
• 41:07
  So I mean, that's actually, yeah, I'm just looking on the
• 41:10
  screen. I got these Rumblebees behind me
• 41:12
  so. Behind you, I know.
• 41:14
  That leads to what those are going to be about, so.
• 41:16
  That leads directly into our next question.
• 41:18
  We would love to hear about the Rumblebee.
• 41:21
  You know, you're bringing it back, leaning into the muscle
• 41:24
  truck idea. So like what?
• 41:27
  And you're driving AT Rex, which to me I, you know, I feel like a
• 41:30
  muscle truck that you can use every day.
• 41:32
  Of course. Why do you think that
• 41:35
  combination is so appealing like pickup truck plus muscle car,
• 41:40
  you know, and has such staying power Like why do you think that
• 41:43
  works so well, especially in North America?
• 41:46
  Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, we are we I think our
• 41:49
  brands have always been about how do you what's the alibi to
• 41:54
  buy a product in some ways, right?
• 41:56
  Like, what's that that intellectual alibi to say, hey,
• 41:59
  I want my muscle car and I want my.
• 42:02
  Function What story are we telling?
• 42:03
  Ourselves, some people don't have the ability to have
• 42:05
  multiple cars right right. So how do you make something and
• 42:08
  that's what's cool about the rumble bees is that when we
• 42:11
  started working on these the idea was we we you know we got
• 42:15
  the wide body on it it's got the TRX fenders and in the and the
• 42:18
  box sides and the the vehicle's wide and planted and then it
• 42:23
  also has a different cab proportion.
• 42:24
  So it's a it's a quad cab proportion with a short bed.
• 42:28
  So the proportion is unique to this truck It's it's it's own
• 42:31
  proportion as far as any of our family of trucks.
• 42:34
  So the thing just looks different.
• 42:36
  You know, like you see it in the flash, you're like, damn,
• 42:38
  there's something about to say this looks it's just like
• 42:40
  square, you know, it's wide and it's.
• 42:44
  Capability. Yeah, it's lighter.
• 42:46
  You know, all the things that you'd want to have in the
• 42:48
  performance side of it and it's I think they're all, you know, I
• 42:52
  don't have the prices off hand, but I know these things are
• 42:54
  going to be priced right too. I mean, that's that's a key is
• 42:57
  that we're going to have, you know, all the 5762, the 64
• 43:02
  something for everybody. The horsepower is going to be
• 43:05
  insane on all of them for what they.
• 43:08
  Yeah, it's just, it's just I think there's something about
• 43:10
  the fact that you can have your cake and eat it too that we've
• 43:13
  always been good at with your product.
• 43:15
  You know, it's like, that's why people loved Challenger and
• 43:18
  Charger for so many years because you know, one side of
• 43:20
  it, like they were big. There is, you know, the current
• 43:23
  cars, the new cars, big, but big means capable and fitting people
• 43:28
  and cargo and life, right? And you have a crazy ass Hellcat
• 43:34
  in it, right? I mean.
• 43:38
  Scott, when you see these police chase videos on YouTube, you
• 43:40
  gotta tell me there's a little pride in your heart, right?
• 43:43
  There is, absolutely. Yes.
• 43:45
  Exactly I made this. I know condone it, but I love
• 43:50
  it, you know? I'm simultaneously proud and
• 43:52
  chagrin. Absolutely, yeah.
• 43:56
  Of course, the cops are driving them too, a lot of the time.
• 43:58
  So right, it's. A playing field, right?
• 44:00
  Right, equal opportunity and we talk a lot here about A2 car
• 44:05
  solution and I think you touched on it really well with the truck
• 44:09
  especially and especially like AT Rex or a Rumblebee, it's A1
• 44:13
  car solution like it's a fantastic, it's fun, it's
• 44:17
  amazingly useful. Like I've had a a truck as my
• 44:20
  daily for 15 years at this point and I continue to be amazed and
• 44:25
  delighted at the utility. But it's a quad cab, so I can
• 44:28
  take plenty of people. Everybody has space.
• 44:30
  And I think it's something that people don't necessarily think
• 44:33
  about as like, hey, I think people have the definition of
• 44:37
  somebody that drives a pickup truck as their daily.
• 44:40
  But trucks have evolved so much and they're super fun too now.
• 44:46
  Fun they're some of them are luxurious I mean right think of
• 44:50
  trucks when I was a kid growing up they were basic as basic git
• 44:54
  and. It was a tool.
• 44:55
  It was a utility vehicle. I mean mine is a 2011 and it has
• 45:02
  multi colored lights that you can choose in the interior.
• 45:04
  And I remember when I first saw that and I thought if you had
• 45:06
  told like our grandparents generation that one day a pickup
• 45:10
  truck is going to have heated seats and lighting that you can
• 45:12
  choose, they will not believe you.
• 45:14
  Oh yeah, they exactly like those luxurious items.
• 45:17
  Who would put those in a truck? This is frivolous in my pickup
• 45:21
  truck that I'm going to use to haul lumber, but like.
• 45:25
  We put the I think the truck was I think the first vehicle in our
• 45:29
  fleet that got ventilated seats, you know, so it's like that's a
• 45:33
  truck's getting that first, you know, right.
• 45:35
  And then after that was like a 300 or something like that, but.
• 45:38
  Sure. Sure.
• 45:39
  Yeah. Isn't that funny?
• 45:40
  I mean, but it also tells you where the demand is because
• 45:43
  that's it's like those are the vehicles that are selling the
• 45:46
  most. So you're putting a lot of those
• 45:48
  features in the ones that are being purchased the most.
• 45:51
  Yeah. But yeah, I just recently, I
• 45:53
  mean my truck is 15 years old at this point and I commented to
• 45:57
  someone like, yeah, I really, really have enjoyed the air
• 45:59
  conditioned seats and use them a lot more than I thought.
• 46:02
  And they said your truck like even at that point they were
• 46:05
  putting those in the trucks. So they are, and I highly
• 46:09
  recommend that's. Right.
• 46:11
  Scott, I have to ask you, I was recently on a press drive with
• 46:14
  an array of vehicles right from different OEM's.
• 46:16
  So trucks, sports cars, crossovers in the one vehicle
• 46:20
  that I heard the most buzz about from the journalist was the
• 46:23
  Chrysler Pacifica. So what's the magic recipe there
• 46:27
  'cause you talk about a car that, you know, really probably
• 46:29
  makes a lot of sense for most of us and we all aspire to, you
• 46:32
  know, something like, you know, super bee, but you know, you are
• 46:36
  the origin of the species, right?
• 46:39
  I mean, my folks ran out and got one in 84, right?
• 46:42
  A little short wheelbase, didn't even have a cassette deck.
• 46:44
  You know it was a Caravan SC, but I think you're one of the
• 46:49
  few companies that still makes a minivan, right?
• 46:51
  Maybe you Kia? This is maybe Toyota.
• 46:54
  Honda, Toyota, yeah. And.
• 46:57
  I feel it's much smaller, yeah. Feel.
• 46:59
  It's much smaller, but much smaller.
• 47:00
  I drove it too and it's fantastic.
• 47:02
  It's got great power, right? We have friends.
• 47:06
  I don't know if you know Angela's death highway, an
• 47:08
  account on Instagram who's who's quite popular and that is the
• 47:13
  only vehicle that I won't say he or she that that individual will
• 47:16
  rent at the Hertz counter or whatever, right?
• 47:18
  That's they have a cult following.
• 47:20
  So what's the magic recipe there?
• 47:21
  It's a great. Function.
• 47:23
  I mean it's. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 47:25
  There's 22 vehicles that people won't, once they get one, they
• 47:28
  won't get out of, and one's a pickup truck and the other one
• 47:31
  is minivan. I mean, I have so many and so
• 47:33
  many people, colleagues, friends here that they joke around
• 47:36
  because it's like, oh, my wife would not drive a minivan.
• 47:39
  You know, it's like, well, what's she driving a minivan?
• 47:42
  Why? Because like she loves it and
• 47:45
  now I love it too. And it's the road trip car and
• 47:47
  it doesn't everything. I mean, they drive so well.
• 47:50
  I mean, they're you can't beat it from a driving standpoint
• 47:54
  versus an SUV. It's like it just, it just won't
• 47:57
  live up to it. So I think it's like once you
• 47:59
  have one, you realize they're so damn functional and they're so
• 48:01
  useful that it's hard. It's hard to substitute it with
• 48:04
  anything else, so. That's really great.
• 48:07
  Yeah, they look great. They're spacious.
• 48:09
  I mean, I think it's just as the, like we always say, it's
• 48:12
  like the stigma of eras, right? Like, you know, some of us that
• 48:15
  grew up riding in the back facing reward and wagons and
• 48:18
  stuff, Some people don't like wagons because of those things
• 48:22
  and other people love wagons and it's like they're cool, you
• 48:24
  know? And same thing with minivans.
• 48:26
  I think we're going to see, I believe generation of people
• 48:30
  that are going to love the minivan.
• 48:32
  They're going to love that spatial logical use of a vehicle
• 48:37
  that's probably the most efficient footprint for everyday
• 48:41
  use. That is, I think people are
• 48:44
  getting there. There's something there and
• 48:45
  it's, there's no stigma attached to it from a, a growing up
• 48:49
  historical standpoint. It's like people are going to,
• 48:51
  we're going to see, we see these cycles happen.
• 48:54
  So and it's use it's just efficiency of space.
• 48:58
  If we can get out of our own ways, we will see the logic and
• 49:01
  the brilliance of the Pacifica, right For those of us.
• 49:04
  Well, and I just saw it was a second Gen.
• 49:07
  Grand Caravan. I just drove from Portland to
• 49:09
  Seattle, and I came up on it on the road and I just went, like,
• 49:12
  I can't remember the last time I saw one from that era, but it
• 49:15
  took me right back to childhood because that was like, my mom
• 49:20
  drove station wagons with the rear facing third seat.
• 49:22
  And I remember when the caravan came out and we got really close
• 49:25
  to getting one as a kid. And it was like, this is the
• 49:28
  pinnacle. Like, we will have arrived if we
• 49:30
  can, you know, achieve this as a family.
• 49:33
  Yeah. Yeah, I remember a buddy of mine
• 49:34
  had like he had the original minivan when I was like in high
• 49:37
  school. He had one.
• 49:38
  And yeah, it was probably high school beginning college.
• 49:41
  He had one, but he always had the 2nd row out.
• 49:44
  He just had the 3rd row and the first row.
• 49:46
  Oh, there you go. It was like a little party.
• 49:48
  Travelling in style? Yeah, he was just he always had
• 49:51
  space for people and it was a hangout vehicle and.
• 49:55
  So yeah, I mean, that's kind of brilliant because you really
• 49:57
  everybody can just sort of explore the space, plenty of leg
• 50:00
  room. Lounge room back there to hang
• 50:02
  out, Yeah. Doors open, Yeah.
• 50:05
  Right. You know, Scott, you talked
• 50:07
  about cycles and I've heard a lot of buzz, and I think this is
• 50:11
  true that sedans are coming back, right?
• 50:13
  We always want what we don't have, right?
• 50:15
  Would you do you give any credence to that theory?
• 50:18
  Yeah, I, I think it's true. I think we've definitely seen it
• 50:20
  in the EV world. I think the sedans, we've seen
• 50:23
  it come back actually. I mean, in some ways, you know,
• 50:25
  we know that statistically sedans are alive and well at the
• 50:29
  premium. They're actually maintaining
• 50:31
  very well. It's more in the, say, commodity
• 50:35
  space, like more of the mainstream.
• 50:36
  We're not seeing a lot of the sedans of kind of they've really
• 50:40
  died off. They've gotten taken over by the
• 50:41
  UV, but you know, I think that that sedan space is going to I
• 50:47
  believe going to come back and we're seeing it starting to come
• 50:50
  back. I mean that's in in like in a
• 50:52
  cool space. I think it's I think it's going
• 50:54
  to definitely turn around because I do think there's an
• 50:57
  efficiency that people are looking for as well.
• 51:00
  I think whether it's electrification, but even.
• 51:03
  Just gas engines and hybrids and things.
• 51:06
  I think we're going to see a rebirth of some sedans coming
• 51:10
  back. I believe that's going to be the
• 51:12
  case. I don't know this to be true,
• 51:14
  but I I imagine it might be easier to design A sedan right
• 51:18
  then you don't have some of the challenges right of packaging
• 51:20
  and all that. But maybe I'm wrong.
• 51:22
  Yeah. No, I think it is.
• 51:23
  I mean, from an efficiency standpoint, especially some of
• 51:26
  the challenges with just air dynamics with EVs and even just
• 51:31
  fuel efficiency in general. And yeah, it's much harder to
• 51:35
  push a big block down the road than it is a kind of a smooth,
• 51:39
  smooth sedan that meets all their kind of the aero aero laws
• 51:43
  that are hard to hard to avoid. But yeah, I think they're,
• 51:47
  they're, you know, I think the the difficulty really is in
• 51:52
  packaging something that is spacious and sleek.
• 51:57
  I mean, that's where it's like, how do you balance out the the
• 52:00
  roominess and the scale that people are looking for?
• 52:04
  You know, Uvs, it's easier to manage that just because of the
• 52:07
  format. But yeah.
• 52:09
  I'm glad to hear it. Yeah, glad to hear it.
• 52:11
  We're excited to see what's to come.
• 52:13
  And so with that in mind, like you've been doing this for 25
• 52:17
  years at Stalantis, what do you want people to like?
• 52:22
  What do you see coming down the Pike?
• 52:25
  What do you want people to feel when they see these cars, you
• 52:28
  know, 5 to 10 years from now? Like what's What do you see the
• 52:32
  future as being? Yeah.
• 52:34
  I mean, I think it's, it's going to be as chaotic as the past.
• 52:39
  I love it. But I do think, I think that,
• 52:43
  you know, from our standpoint, I think that I like timeless
• 52:46
  design. I I like obviously you want to
• 52:50
  balance a balance of you don't want something that's too for
• 52:53
  the moment. I think it lives and dies real
• 52:55
  quick. I think that, you know, a lot of
• 52:58
  our products, we're at our best when we create a bit of, you
• 53:01
  know, kind of a beautiful, timeless design that's going to
• 53:03
  live on and it's going to allow us to do a lot with it
• 53:06
  throughout It's it's throughout its life cycle.
• 53:10
  But I mean from us, you're going to see a lot of new stuff.
• 53:13
  I mean we got, you know, we've already announced a lot of
• 53:16
  things we're doing. We got the mid size truck, the
• 53:18
  Dakota coming right. That's going to be an awesome
• 53:20
  product. Will there be a convertible?
• 53:23
  A convertible. Because that was the coolest.
• 53:27
  Yeah. I had a kid up the street in the
• 53:29
  high school who had one of those windows, and I just thought that
• 53:32
  that was everything. That was very so cool.
• 53:34
  Well, let's see. Let's see the maybe, I guess.
• 53:37
  Ryan is putting in. He's putting in his request now.
• 53:41
  So, yeah, it's I think there's some some cool stuff we're
• 53:45
  doing. I mean, I've seen Jeep leaves a
• 53:47
  lot of doors open for us. Jeep is such a fun brand.
• 53:51
  I mean, you know, you probably guys have probably seen maybe
• 53:54
  have seen some of the 12 for twelves that we're doing the the
• 53:57
  drops that we've done a different Jeep every month,
• 54:02
  which was just an awesome, you know, flood of ideas.
• 54:06
  That's got to be fun. We created that.
• 54:07
  Antonio, our CEO is just he, he really wanted us to infuse the,
• 54:12
  the life into Jeep again and bring back a lot of cool models.
• 54:15
  And that's where we had these 12 for 12 models that were just so
• 54:19
  much fun. Just go go look into those
• 54:21
  afterwards. There are a lot of really cool
• 54:23
  ones because it really is like, you know, the, the, the concepts
• 54:26
  we would do for Moab, just just designers having fun with the
• 54:31
  details. And one of them's called Rewind,
• 54:34
  which is kind of a kind of a little bit of a retro back to
• 54:36
  the, so the 90s a little bit. Yeah, yeah.
• 54:41
  Yeah, that was good old days. Yeah, it was just cool stuff.
• 54:44
  We'll bring back a Laredo. And so, yeah, there's a lot of
• 54:47
  cool, cool ideas. But yeah, I mean, like I said,
• 54:51
  Jeep, Jeep is, there's a lot of creativity happening in all the
• 54:55
  brands, of course, but Jeep is, we're having a lot of fun right
• 55:00
  now, so that's awesome. Some cool things to come.
• 55:03
  So what still gets you excited after doing this for, you know,
• 55:08
  more than two decades? Like what makes you think like
• 55:11
  look at a new product and go like, OK, I cannot wait to get
• 55:14
  into this. Oh, boy, it's so many things.
• 55:18
  I, I just, I, I just love, I mean, I honestly big, a big
• 55:22
  thing about my role now is I love seeing the young talent
• 55:26
  coming up. Yeah, seeing what they're
• 55:29
  designing, seeing what they care about, you know, like we, we
• 55:33
  have an environment that is like the best design wins.
• 55:36
  Doesn't matter if you've been here 2 days or you've been here
• 55:38
  for two, you know, 20 years. It's like it's about the
• 55:42
  coolest, best design, the thing that meets the need of the
• 55:45
  customer best. I think it's a lot of the
• 55:48
  excitement of seeing what they're producing, seeing a lot
• 55:50
  of these ideas because it's coming from a place of their,
• 55:53
  their generation. You know, some of these younger
• 55:55
  designers coming in that are it, it's, it's, it's cool to see
• 56:00
  their perspective on cars and a lot of it's different.
• 56:04
  You know, it's like a lot of it's how do we manage
• 56:07
  affordability? How do we, how do we design cars
• 56:09
  that, like I said earlier, it's about what's important for this
• 56:13
  vehicle may not be, you know, we may not need this stuff.
• 56:18
  We may not need this, this component or this kind of
• 56:20
  content. And they're kind of giving us a
• 56:23
  little signal into that. A lot of the younger customers
• 56:26
  and younger designers. That's fun.
• 56:30
  You know, it's, it's a, it's a different problem to solve for.
• 56:32
  It's a different thought in in how we design cars.
• 56:35
  It's not the same as when I came up and studied in car design.
• 56:39
  So the problems are different, some more challenging than they
• 56:42
  were back then, new opportunities.
• 56:46
  So yeah, I think it's just like we said earlier, it's a lot of
• 56:49
  this new challenges that are happening every day.
• 56:51
  And if if that wasn't changing it, probably the job wouldn't be
• 56:56
  that fun, you know, wouldn't be that glorating and exciting.
• 56:59
  So. We're kind of in a golden era,
• 57:01
  aren't we? In a weird way I mean.
• 57:03
  It is. It's a massive amount of change
• 57:05
  happening all at once. Right now, yeah, Yeah.
• 57:08
  So I mean, we see these moments of of some, you know, could be,
• 57:13
  you know, 10 years of nothing and turn, you know, major steps
• 57:17
  or changes and then. But it's ingenuity, right?
• 57:21
  I mean, it does exactly, yeah. Exactly.
• 57:25
  So yeah, a lot of problem solving, a lot of different ways
• 57:27
  to think of it. Well, and I don't, I mean,
• 57:29
  that's an interesting point because I don't typically think
• 57:31
  about sort of the external forces.
• 57:34
  But like you said, like generational sensibilities are
• 57:38
  different, driving is different, life is very different like from
• 57:41
  the 90s to now and that informs the design.
• 57:44
  So I love that that is part of the process because I think that
• 57:48
  almost guarantees that you're creating a product that is
• 57:50
  relevant to customers today, which is ultimately what
• 57:54
  matters. So that's really incredible.
• 57:56
  And that brings me to something else.
• 57:58
  I wanted to ask you like, what would you, what advice would you
• 58:00
  give somebody who is maybe not even in college yet, but is
• 58:04
  interested in design, may or may not be interested in cars, but
• 58:09
  you know is considering a career in automotive design or design,
• 58:12
  What, what would you tell them? And my daughter's name is Elsa,
• 58:17
  and I want her to take this path, the path that I never
• 58:20
  dared take. So yeah.
• 58:21
  We're both definitely not asking for our 13 year old daughter.
• 58:28
  Yeah, I'd say. I mean, like I said, I grew up
• 58:30
  with a background in product design and I say that it's
• 58:34
  important because it's, these are all products, right?
• 58:37
  So it doesn't matter if you're designing cars or you're or you
• 58:40
  want to design shoe design. A lot of friends in the shoe
• 58:42
  industry. I have friends in product design
• 58:45
  world doing like consumer electronics.
• 58:47
  We have friends doing interior design or they're doing like,
• 58:51
  you know, kind of retail stores and things like that.
• 58:54
  So I just say like, if you're interested in something, go go
• 58:58
  seek it out, go look into it. Don't don't.
• 59:01
  The hardest thing about design and I think with young kids,
• 59:04
  honestly, is that it's not a path that's normal.
• 59:07
  It's not a it's not a path that you could take because a lot of
• 59:11
  other people are doing it. It's you got to go against the
• 59:14
  grain a little bit and go look, go seek it out yourself.
• 59:17
  But it's a rewarding career. It really is.
• 59:19
  It's a lot of fun. It's, it's hard, not going to
• 59:22
  lie. It's a tough path, but it's,
• 59:25
  it's a blast. And I think it's, yeah.
• 59:29
  I mean, if you're, if you have an interest in art and you have
• 59:31
  like a creative mind and you got, you know, I guess say
• 59:35
  everyone has ideas, but I think designers have the ability to
• 59:38
  kind of bring them to life so that people can see it and
• 59:41
  understand it and, and implement it.
• 59:44
  So, yeah, I just say like, just seek it out.
• 59:46
  If you think of something, go look into it.
• 59:48
  I guarantee there's probably a career.
• 59:50
  I mean, that's one thing I learned when I went to school.
• 59:52
  It's like everything's designed. Somebody is like whether it's a
• 59:56
  glass you're picking up and drinking out of, it's like it's
• 59:59
  somebody designed that somebody's actually creating
• 1:00:01
  these things. So, so yeah, it's like if
• 1:00:04
  there's an interest that somebody has with the creativity
• 1:00:07
  of art and they have an interest in some kind of product field or
• 1:00:11
  things that they're interested in.
• 1:00:13
  Don't go seek it out. Great advice.
• 1:00:14
  You have to just follow it. You have to follow your dreams.
• 1:00:16
  So many of us don't do that right?
• 1:00:17
  We do drive for design, by the way, which is a for for a lot of
• 1:00:20
  younger kids. We, we have a program where we,
• 1:00:23
  we it's kind of an open call to all younger, really.
• 1:00:27
  OK yeah. To like, hey, it's like
• 1:00:30
  different car design ideas. And every year we bring a
• 1:00:34
  typically a high school student in OK that actually resides in
• 1:00:38
  the studio as an intern, OK. I guess we're all moving to
• 1:00:42
  Detroit, right? It's super cool.
• 1:00:45
  I mean, we've shepherded this Mark Trossell and and the team,
• 1:00:48
  they've, they've done this for years now.
• 1:00:51
  I don't know how many years. It is 10 or so.
• 1:00:54
  So cool. How?
• 1:00:56
  Where would people find out more information?
• 1:00:58
  If they have a child or they themselves are interested, how
• 1:01:00
  would they learn more about that?
• 1:01:02
  Yeah, I'd go to Drive for design, Stalantis, Dr. for
• 1:01:06
  design.com. There we go, Stalantis.
• 1:01:09
  Driving, yeah. That's super.
• 1:01:10
  Cool. Yeah, it's great.
• 1:01:12
  It's really cool. And seeing these young kids, I
• 1:01:13
  mean, they present to like all of us in a professional space.
• 1:01:18
  I mean, I could never do that as a kid.
• 1:01:19
  I'm like sure. I don't know how to do it, man.
• 1:01:21
  It's it's. Really awe of that, but what an
• 1:01:24
  amazing skill to help them start developing early because you're
• 1:01:28
  right, so many of us get to like kind of graduate college and get
• 1:01:32
  to the corporate world and go like, oh, I'm supposed to know
• 1:01:34
  how to present to a room full of people or whatever it is and
• 1:01:38
  haven't sort of developed that in a way that would have been
• 1:01:42
  helpful, you know, earlier come. On, you know.
• 1:01:47
  It is the challenge, but yes. I'm sure you're.
• 1:01:50
  Wonderful. But yeah, it's.
• 1:01:51
  Yeah, so I have to give a quick shout out.
• 1:01:54
  I am a part of this delightful, hilarious text thread which with
• 1:01:59
  a group of PT Cruiser enthusiasts and we spend our
• 1:02:02
  days spotting them and sharing them with the group.
• 1:02:05
  So I just had to tell you the retro design is alive and well,
• 1:02:08
  and we're very enthusiastic about that.
• 1:02:11
  Scott if you knew who was in that group, like the names, the
• 1:02:14
  the the people of. It's a good.
• 1:02:18
  Reputations. Yes, yes.
• 1:02:20
  Hey, I worked on the last Gen. PT Cruiser.
• 1:02:23
  I worked on the interior and it was cool, man.
• 1:02:26
  That's that that car. I'll tell you what, there's
• 1:02:29
  still something about that car. And I I say that, Chris, that's
• 1:02:32
  a great example of excellent packaging, occupant packaging.
• 1:02:37
  It's like the great, it's just the wildest ingress egress,
• 1:02:40
  super easy getting a lot of you know, you talk about the
• 1:02:42
  minivan. I think there's something about
• 1:02:45
  the the reason that car success, the design was so radical for
• 1:02:50
  what it was and it was such a useful car.
• 1:02:52
  You know, it's like it kind of checked boxes for people very
• 1:02:55
  much to be easy, get in and out of super functional, fun to
• 1:02:59
  drive. And you know, especially when
• 1:03:01
  you have the 2 four 2.4 liter turbo in it.
• 1:03:03
  It was you used to just, you know, you RIP the front tires
• 1:03:06
  all day long, torque steer all over the place.
• 1:03:10
  But it was it was a cool car for sure.
• 1:03:14
  Well, I mean, and that's true because the ease of use, like if
• 1:03:16
  you answer a question that people didn't know they were
• 1:03:19
  asking, or you're like, man, I didn't know I needed this in my
• 1:03:21
  life, but now I don't want to live without it, you know, and,
• 1:03:25
  and I think the PT Cruiser really embodies some of the fun
• 1:03:30
  Chrysler spirit and the like with Jeeps, they can be so
• 1:03:35
  personalized. There's something about PT
• 1:03:36
  Cruisers that, you know, entices people to personalize them.
• 1:03:42
  My husband has started finding them on Marketplace and he found
• 1:03:45
  one the other day that was white with lavender and pink flames on
• 1:03:48
  the front. And I went, I need that.
• 1:03:52
  I didn't know I needed that in my life, but I must have it.
• 1:03:55
  So it's it hasn't joined the fleet yet, but if it pops up
• 1:03:59
  again there is a strong chance I want to be.
• 1:04:02
  Transcended demographics. Right.
• 1:04:04
  I will. I'll find the market because it
• 1:04:06
  was a marketplace listing from I think a year ago.
• 1:04:09
  So I don't think it's available at the moment, but I'll find the
• 1:04:12
  photo and send it to you because it was just, it was the most
• 1:04:15
  tremendous example of PT Cruiser personalization and enthusiasm
• 1:04:20
  that I've ever seen to date. So you know, but it was great.
• 1:04:24
  So we will leave you. I have one quick rapid fire
• 1:04:28
  question for you before we let you go today.
• 1:04:30
  Is there? We'll bring it back to the Viper
• 1:04:33
  as we close out. Is there a detail on the Viper
• 1:04:37
  that was a favorite of yours or that you were particularly proud
• 1:04:40
  of? That maybe people don't even
• 1:04:43
  really, you know, focus on, but that you see it or you know it.
• 1:04:48
  And you're like, that's my little Easter egg for myself
• 1:04:50
  that I just love. And you know, it's, it's, I
• 1:04:55
  think the, the, the most fun of that car was the, the, the
• 1:04:59
  things that were just most enjoyable, I guess were like the
• 1:05:02
  little things to get the arrow out of it.
• 1:05:05
  When I say arrow, the challenges of the top speed of that car, we
• 1:05:09
  spent, we spent months in the wind tunnel because it was like,
• 1:05:13
  you know, to get from, I think it was like 2O2 to two O 6 miles
• 1:05:17
  an hour. That's like that was a huge
• 1:05:19
  arrow channel. It was like, that's not easy to
• 1:05:21
  just, I mean, you could do it with like just raw power, but it
• 1:05:24
  takes exponential power to get over a threshold of top speed.
• 1:05:29
  So it was all these little like slight surface nuances on the
• 1:05:32
  back and the front corner. How do we put, you know, how
• 1:05:35
  much radius, how much tightness do you put in the front edge?
• 1:05:38
  So there's all these little things all around the car.
• 1:05:40
  It's not really like any one detail per SE, but that's really
• 1:05:44
  where I just, you know, it's like I, I bought one, I have
• 1:05:46
  one. I, I told my wife I'll it's not
• 1:05:49
  a matter of if, it's a matter of when.
• 1:05:51
  And I got 114, but I still have the car and I'm like, you could
• 1:05:55
  bury me. Then you can get rid of that car
• 1:05:57
  or whatever. I'm going to keep that car as
• 1:05:59
  long as I live. But what color?
• 1:06:00
  What color? I got black, black with black.
• 1:06:03
  That's that's a great color, very stealth.
• 1:06:06
  Yeah, GTS, it's a great car I love.
• 1:06:09
  It. That's all those little details,
• 1:06:11
  those things that I can point all around the car and just, and
• 1:06:14
  actually they become beautiful sculpture, you know, like areas
• 1:06:17
  that people think that are just like styled, but they're not
• 1:06:20
  they're that's the difference of the style and design that I
• 1:06:23
  talked about. It's like those are the things
• 1:06:25
  that they're super functionally driven, but the outcome was like
• 1:06:30
  they, they created different highlights and, and just things
• 1:06:33
  that when you're washing the car, you get to appreciate them.
• 1:06:36
  So, so yeah, it was a that was a labor of love.
• 1:06:39
  A lot of good times. They had a great relationship
• 1:06:41
  with engineering too. I mean, it was, it was so much
• 1:06:43
  fun solving their challenges through design and through
• 1:06:47
  sculpture, so. I love that.
• 1:06:49
  Well, I mean, Jay Leno always says they're rolling works of
• 1:06:51
  art that you can drive if you want them to.
• 1:06:53
  And I think that's a prime example.
• 1:06:55
  And and it takes it back to user experience too.
• 1:06:58
  I mean, you don't typically think about what's the
• 1:07:01
  experience of the car when you're washing it, what a
• 1:07:04
  tremendous indication of how successful the design is that
• 1:07:07
  even when you're washing it, it's sitting still and you're
• 1:07:10
  cleaning it and you're still getting starry eyed and just
• 1:07:13
  going like we really, we really nailed it with this one.
• 1:07:16
  That's always We talk about washability all the time, all
• 1:07:19
  the time. So that's a real thing.
• 1:07:23
  Like you wash it even like when you talk about like wheel
• 1:07:26
  designs or like can you get things clean that, you know,
• 1:07:29
  it's like, but the washability of like feeling the car.
• 1:07:32
  And that's usually when you that's when you really get to be
• 1:07:35
  intimate with a car and understand this language.
• 1:07:38
  And so, yeah, it's a it's it's, it's a real thing.
• 1:07:42
  We got to get you back sometime, this I know you can talk to all
• 1:07:45
  the fun. This was fun, I enjoy it.
• 1:07:48
  We won't keep you longer today even though we clearly could,
• 1:07:50
  because I feel like we was hit on something that is tremendous
• 1:07:54
  and we need to talk more about it next time.
• 1:07:56
  But for now, we will say thank you so much for joining us
• 1:07:59
  today. It's been fascinating for me and
• 1:08:02
  I know it will be for our audience and I think we've
• 1:08:04
  covered a wide range of topics, but we really appreciate you
• 1:08:09
  being here with us today and I. Want to say thank you guys.
• 1:08:12
  Thank you. Thank you and thank you to our
• 1:08:14
  audience for being here. We appreciate you spending time
• 1:08:17
  with us each week telling your enthusiast friends about the
• 1:08:19
  show. And of course, if you like what
• 1:08:21
  we're doing, please consider leaving a five star review as it
• 1:08:24
  really does help others find out about the show.
• 1:08:27
  Remember to always be driving where that car show and we'll
• 1:08:30
  see you next week.