First Chinese-designed car in U.S. will be the Buick LaCrosse



This interesting article from FastCompany.com follows the story of Joe Qiu, known as "Shanghai Joe" within General Motors where he works at the company's Pan Asia Technical Automotive Center (PATAC) in Shanghai as a car designer. Qiu and a relatively small, inexperienced team of designers were responsible for the current version of the Buick LaCrosse sold in China (shown above). This year the car is expected to sell 110,000 units in China, while it's counterpart in name only sold just 71,072 units in the U.S. during 2006.

The story of GM's Chinese-based design team is certainly a rags to riches one that will culminate in the next few years with PATAC's designing the world's next Buick LaCrosse, due out in 2008 or 2009. As is the custom at GM these days, design chief Ed Welburn pitted his 11 design centers from around the world against each other for the privilege of penning the next LaCrosse. The favored North American team and the underdog Chinese team were clear favorites with the majority of good ideas, so Welburn chose to have both work on the design. The North American team will handle the exterior, while the smaller Chinese team will design the interior. The Chinese designers, though, will also have significant input on the car's exterior since it's expected that China will quickly be Buick's biggest market worldwide.

We think that's just fine, as we reported last November that the Chinese LaCrosse is way cooler than ours. Indeed, the PATAC team's designs are world class compared to the derivitive and downright ugly designs coming from many of China's young automakers. Will the Chinese market one day set trends for the world market? It's a scary though, but who knows? If Joe Qiu becomes the next Ed Welburn at GM, however, things will likely be alright.

[Source: FastCompany.com]

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)

Add your comments

Please keep your comments relevant to this blog entry. Email addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments.

When you enter your name and email address, you'll be sent a link to confirm your comment, and a password. To leave another comment, just use that password.

To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or email address and we will make it a live link for you. You can put up to 3 URLs in your comments. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted — no need to use <p> or <br /> tags.








Autoblog Podcast #151: With Car and Driver's Eddie Alterman

Eddie Alterman wades in with Sam, Chris, Dan, and Jonny to talk about SEMA and other recent events.

 
 

Featured Galleries

  • BMW Concept 6
  • Zenvo ST1 Details
  • SEMA 2009: HPP Daytona Challenger
  • LA Design Challenge 2009 Competitors
  • SEMA 2009: 1962 Chevrolet Corvette C1-RS
  • SEMA 2009: Bigfoot
  • SEMA 2009: Black Bison Toyota Alphard
  • Ford's Inflatable Seat Belts
  • 2011 Porsche Boxster Spyder
  • Shelby Turbocharged Mustang
  • Jetta TDI Cup Street Edition
  • SEMA 2009: Ringbrothers 1964 Ford Fairlane

AOL Autos

Find Your Next Car

Autoblog Video


Autoblog Green

Daily Finance

Download Squad

Engadget

Joystiq

Autoblog Spanish

Switched.com

FanHouse

Asylum