Gilles Vidal is a superstar in the world of design.
He has had success reinventing both Peugeot and Renault over the past 20 years. But now he's taking on his most challenging job yet, leading the design of no fewer than 10 automotive brands.
The news that he would be leaving Renault to head design for Stellantis's European division was a shock when it arrived in July last year.
Hype for the new Twingo was at its peak, following the firm's successful reimaginings of the classic 4 and 5. Meanwhile, the Clio was about to undergo its most dramatic evolution in decades.
He could quite easily have kept on churning out hits. Perhaps that would have been enough to position himself as the eventual successor to Renault Group design chief Laurens van den Acker.
Yet a homecoming clearly proved more appealing. Stellantis's precursor, the PSA Group, was where Vidal made his name establishing not one but two fresh identities for Peugeot.
First was 2010's SR1 concept, a handsome convertible that did away with the huge smiling grilles of the brand's cars through the noughties; then came 2017's Instinct, which evolved his design language with the fang-like running lights that remain a Peugeot signature to this day.
He opens in dramatic fashion: "We are living in the biggest revolution of the past few centuries, probably not just in our industry but in the world too. With the speed at which we need to do our projects now, with AI tools and the power it has, what do we do with that?
"Maybe there is a challenge on the way in how we build cars in factories and how they can be transformed into something much more efficient. If you observe the world today, we are living in the biggest revolutions for a few centuries. We need to adapt accordingly."
