Sacré bleu!!
From Car Design News:
According to our industry contacts, Lo resigned as Director of Advanced Design at General Motors Europe, handing in his papers yesterday morning. He is now set be become Vice President of Exterior Design at Renault, working under recently appointed Design Director Laurens van den Acker.
I guess those who, like me, were hoping that Anthony might come back to Saab will be disappointed.
Anthony Lo worked under Michael Mauer at Saab before heading up the design team for the Saab Aero-X concept car. As such, he’s one of the fathers of Saab’s modern design DNA that you’ve herd Victor Muller talking about so much recently.
After the Aero-X, Anthony went to Russelsheim where he was named Director of Advanced Design. I interviewed Anthony in Detroit back in 2008, when he was presenting the Saab 9-4x concept vehicle and caught up with him again briefly in Frankfurt last year. He mentioned at that time that he was weighing up his options (Saab were still being sold to Koenigsegg at that time) so a move was always a possibility. It’s just a shame it didn’t mean a move back to Sweden. He’s a fantastic designer and more than that, a fantastic guy, too.
Good luck with those fiesty Frenchmen, Anthony.
Anthony spills the beans to Par Brandt from Auto Motor and Sport.
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Thanks to Chris for the link!
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I think Simon has it well under control. Until then, I nominate Niklas (Palm). He’s got some good stuff up his sleeve, hope to collaborate with him in the future. Anthony is a great talent, no doubt, but I want to see the face that he created adapted to the current concepts and then someone else to take a fresh look and refine it.
Good luck to you Anthony and thank you.
I’ll go a step further than Jeff and I hope that Saab gets a new post GM look. Saab’s focus and direction will change a bit now it’s no longer shackled to GM, so it ‘look’ should change a little too. A new concept car would get the ball rolling, and I hope the NG9-3 is the first production Saab to feature some of the new look.
Ouch. He should go where is best for him. Perhaps a jointly developed car with Renault is in our future. You never know….
I remember that Lo had a heavy hand in the new Saab 9-3 refresh. That car will be very important to the future of the company so his presence will be felt for years to come.
All the best Lo.
Good man, best of luck to him.
Good luck to Anthony!
Somewhat disappointing he’s not coming back “home”, but Saab’s got Simon and a score of other talented designers who will surely make their mark under VM’s guidance.
We do not need Lo or Mauer we need Bjorn Envall !!
110% agree with you there!!
I’m not so radical as Etienne, but I think Mr. Padian is the better (may I say best) option.
He has been at SAAB for(at least) the last 20 Years, he has talked on an interview about the new 900, and how they had to change it to fit on the GM platform.
So he is a guy who believed in SAAB and stayed at SAAB.
I would love to know more about his career at SAAB over that 20 years, and which designs are from him, and which where simply presented to the audience by another person.
No.. Bring the great one, oh Sixten Sason, back to life..
Seriously, having met Simon Padian, I have good vibes, and the team in THN is dedicated.
All the best Anthony
Good luck Mr. Lo, although I’m really disappointed he doesn’t want to stay with SAAB SPYKER, I would love to see more SAAB designs coming from his mind.
Renault needs a proper design language asap, their new vehicles are completely alienated, for Anthony this can be an interesting career move.
But I believe in the current SAAB design team, Simon is a true believer in the brand, with a fresh and dandy breeze coming from Mr. Muller I think we’ll have the perfect recipe.
Dont forget VM likes to dabble with the pen as well.
Maybe they’ll finally get some good looking cars at Renault then
I hope Victor does not want to become head designer with Saab as well. He may have ideas but he is not a skilled designer.
Saab’s modern design language is actually neat.
Simon Padian is top notch as is the entire design team. Saab is lucky to have him.
Not necessarily a good thing in my opinion. I’m just happy to have Simon onboard as he has been with us for a long time.
I have complete confidence in Simon Padian. My 2008 9-3 is art.
I like this guy a lot and kind of disappointed that he is not coming back.
I read a couple of interviews of him in some chinese car magazines and he talked about his experience at Saab and Sweden.
Truly a great guy.
I disagree with those of you who say current Renault design is bad. At least they manage to build cars easy to reckognize in the street. (Fords,Opels,Kias some Toyotas look pretty the same) I am a fun of Renault design – they had many really well designed cars ovetr past 20 years . So I am happy to hear they will have one great designer more in their team
@Eggs’n Grits: I believe that if Saab needs any partnership for developing future cars, French, companies are the best ones. Such carmakers as VW or Fiat don’t need Saab as they have their own premium brands. Renault who failed with Vel Satis could be interested in developing a premium car together with Saab (like Fiat with Croma/9000).
I want lotus to have some involvement as well
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