interviews

Click the links to read:

• Interview with Jason Castriota – part 1
• Interview with Jason Castriota – part 2

Jason Castriota is Saab’s Head of Design. In part 1 of this series, we talked about his appointment at Saab and a little about the successor to the Saab 9-3. In part 2, we focused more on the 9-3 successor, the expectations on Saab Design and the Saab concept car that will be shown in Geneva, 2011.

This is the final segment in this 3-part series based on phone calls in September and October 2010. My thanks once again to Jason Castriota for taking the time to chat about so many different issues for the benefit of the wider Saab community.

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SW: The workload is very heavy at the moment, with that concept vehicle (that will show in Geneva 2011) on top of the work for the 9-3 successor. How is the Saab design team functioning on a day to day basis at the moment? And what size team do we have at the moment? You’re in New York right now, so how is that working?

JC: Well, I’m constantly back and forth. My month is broken into around 10-14 days in Trollhattan. There’s a week of PR commitments and a week in New York. It really is a time of constant travel.

The team is absolutely flat out. We’re a team of around 35 people in total. There’s around 7 designers in total, including my people, then we have about 15 computer modelers, a handful of physical modelers and a handful of project managers. So around 30-35 people in total. It’s a very small team, but it’s the way it should be because the ideas are very clear now, and it’s all about having that synergy with your collaborators and executing.

We have the exterior and interior programs for the 9-3 successor going on right now (mid-October) – one main interior theme and then with the various body style changes, there’s mild variations because of rear door panels, or a lack of rear door panels, etc. In parallel we have the exterior and interior of the concept car happening.

SW: OK. Switching tack for a moment…

You’re part of the board now and you’re doing a lot of PR work, etc. I know you’ve got a particular interest in branding and making sure something suits the brand. Are you playing a part in the visual design in Saab’s branding efforts in the next couple of years?

JC: Absolutely. I’m working hand in hand with Knut Simonsson, the head of marketing. Simon (Padian) and another guy in the studio, Matthias, are working together with me to help design provide support to marketing and branding. We have to make sure the new message from Saab is very clear.

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Click the link to read part 1 of my interview with Jason Castriota – Saab’s Head of Design.

Part 3 is still to come.

When we left Part 1, we’d just started talking about the expectations surrounding the successor to the Saab 9-3, which is due in Q4 of 2012. Our conversation was interrupted and we had to pick things up again around 5 weeks later, so we started there.

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SW: So back to the weight of expectation around the successor to the 9-3. We talked about it in terms of what the company needs this car to do – it has to be a hit in all categories – but how conscious are you of customers’ expectations re: what this car represents.

JC: I’m absolutely conscious about it. It represents the core Saab car for not just the existing core clientele but also people who are just car enthusiasts in general. This is always going to be the ‘point of reference’ Saab, the spiritual successor to the 900, which is the car that made Saab a modern and relevant company.

It’s great for me because we’re being placed in a ‘dare to be great situation’ and some people view that as a risky position. I don’t view that as a risk because if I’m given the power to live or die by my own hands then I believe in what I’m going to be able to do.

I know Victor feels the same way about the things he does and the risks he takes as a businessman and I know Jan-Ake feels the same way. None of us really feel like we’re at risk. There’s a challenge ahead of us, particularly this year because it’s going to be a difficult year – there’s no doubt about that.

It’s an uphill battle for Saab this year because in the United States, above all other markets, this is the market that suffered the most because of the fallout of what happened with GM. So there’s still this unfortunate misconception in the United States that Saab doesn’t exist, that it’s dead, been liquidated, and it’s something that we’re having to take very seriously – building customer trust and market trust again.

SW: With this 9-3 replacement, are you looking back to iconic features of older Saabs, to either include those directly, or include cues to those in the new car? Or is it something that’s going to be pretty fresh, a complete new direction?

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Recently, I had the good fortune to spend a bit of time on the phone with Saab’s new design chief, Jason Castriota. The conversation was split over two sessions. We first spoke on September 8, a conversation that was cut short due to unforeseen circumstances. We finished things off on October 15.

In between those dates, Jason had the unveiling of the SSC Ultimate Aero, which he designed, as well as the Paris Motor Show and a bunch of Saab-related interviews with various members of the motoring press.

My thanks to Jason for picking up the phone and having a chat. As you’ll see below, he likes to talk, which makes for a great interview.

We skipped the stuff about him drawing cars when he was five years old, etc, and got straight into the Saab questions, many of which were posed in comments by SU readers prior to Jason and I talking.

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Swade: You and Victor Muller seem pretty similar. You’ve both got pretty fine tastes and you seem to have ended up at events that suit your similar nature, places like Pebble Beach, etc. When did you guys first meet and did you hit it off straight away?

Jason Castriota: Yeah, we really did hit it off straight away and I have to say that with Victor, I really do have a partner in crime. I really love his gregarious nature. He’s a bit bold, a bit brash and he’s managed to be so successful being blunt and honest, true to the point. I’ve really prided myself on being that way in my career as well, and that can make you some friends but it can also work against you sometimes as people don’t expect such blunt answers. But I think, from a designer’s point of view, that you have to be very assertive and I like the fact that Victor’s very assertive as well.

We actually met in 2006 at the Geneva Auto Show and we really hit it off right away. He was very complimentary of the things I was working but aside from that, sometimes you just find that when you meet someone and start talking to them, that you have very similar tastes. You have a fun, vibrant conversation that just moves forward by itself and next thing you know, you’ve lost 30 minutes. That’s kind of how it was with Victor and I.

Over the years we just kept running into each other at auto shows, events and various car-oriented and enthusiast-oriented events and we always agreed it would be really cool to do something together some day but we never really new when that day would come. I didn’t know if it would ever come, to be honest, because you hear that sort of thing a lot in the industry, but with Victor I always felt it probably would.

I ran into him again at Geneva this year and he immediately asked me “What are you doing?” And he called me over to the Spyker stand and asked me again – ‘what are you doing?”. I told him I was running my own consultancy. I was enjoying being master of my own destiny, etc. He said “that’s great, but you have to come and be director at Saab”.

I said “I don’t know” (laughs).

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