Pick three blokes – any three blokes in the world – to sit around a table with and talk cars. Fast cars, interesting cars, everyday cars, driver’s cars, electric cars, motorsport and more. Come on – who are you gonna pick?
Well, you couldn’t do much better than these three: Matt Becker (chief engineer of vehicle attribute engineering at Aston Martin), Mike Cross (chief engineer, vehicle targets and sign-off, at Jaguar Land Rover) and Andreas Preuninger (director of high-performance cars at Porsche).
These three blokes will each be well known to regular Autocar readers because they’re among the most influential figures in the industry for defining and tuning the character traits of the very best driver’s cars in the world. They collectively have years of experience doing the sort of job most of us could only dream of, and have personally shaped and tailored some utterly unforgettable metal.
We have occasion to talk to them, each in isolation, pretty regularly. But never before the chance to sit them around the same table to gossip about the state of the sports car industry, about each other’s wares, and about all of our hopes and fears for the future of enthusiast motordom.
Not, at least, until now.
You guys have what some would consider the best jobs in the world. But how do you know when it’s done? When is a car finished?
Mike Cross: The trouble is they never really are.
Andreas Preuninger: It’s never done [smiles].
Mike Cross: You just get to a point of sufficiently diminished returns that you know you’re ready for production. I’m not sure I’m ever completely satisfied with something, but I know when I’ve achieved my targets.
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Brilliant Read
Best bit of motoring journalism i've read in a long time. Also the most encouraging.
Glad to see there is still sense in the industry, electric cars make sense for mobility, but why is everyone thinking everything has to be electric. If these three manufacturers alone keep their heads screwed on that'll be enough for me. They are all in my top five makes anyway.
Agreed
Very good read - an opinion piece with experts.
Wonderful article
Thanks, Autocar.
You wobbled a bit on a ham-fisted piece about big vs small wheels the other week. But not this, it was great reading and wonderful to read this. I worked with one of these guys and he knows his stuff and, yes he would add componentry and cost to a car that was hidden from people like me at senior level - and drivers too.
They all do it though I'm sure and we are lucky to have them tuning our cars.