{"id":1886881,"date":"2026-04-17T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1886881"},"modified":"2026-04-17T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T21:00:00","slug":"stellantis-design-boss-gilles-vidal-im-firmly-against-putting-everything-on-a-screen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1886881","title":{"rendered":"Stellantis design boss Gilles Vidal: “I\u2019m firmly against putting everything on a screen”"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Citro\u00ebn M\u00e9hari, Fiat Panda and, yes, Multipla, Lancia Delta Integrale, Maserati Ghibli \u2013 the original \u2013 and the actor Christophe Lambert jumping a 205 GTI over a ledge in 1985 French movie cult classic Subway<\/em>\u2026 We\u2019re watching a Stellantis sizzle reel, bordering on a fever dream, but also a reminder of the scale of the company\u2019s achievements across multiple time-lines.<\/p>\n

Now these names are intertwined, and fighting to remain relevant in a world that seems increasingly unbothered by legacy when you can have a tech-savvy new Chinese car for \u00a3250 per month. In which context, design assumes greater importance than ever, as Gilles Vidal, the man responsible for the visual trajectory of Stellantis\u2019s European brands, is well aware.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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You\u2019ll know the name: after 24 years at Citro\u00ebn and Peugeot, he defected to Renault in 2020, where he helped shepherd the 4, 5 and Twingo into critical and commercially acclaimed life. EVs with soul and snap, and resonance even for buyers who wouldn\u2019t know an original R5 from the Eiffel Tower. Now new(-ish) Stellantis CEO Antonio Filosa has lured the amiable Frenchman back home to work his magic. Expect to see the first results at the Paris auto show in October.<\/p>\n

As the short film concludes, Vidal lays it on the line. \u201cWe\u2019re talking about Stellantis as a company, but the general public doesn\u2019t care so much about that, they care about the brands themselves,\u201d he tells TopGear.com. \u201cWe need to be super sharp about what our brands stand for. They are the company\u2019s biggest asset.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“What you saw there [on the film] was very pushy, very creative and very relevant for their brands and for the era they were in. What we want to do is push it as far as we can again. It\u2019s a matter of finding the right balance, the sweet spot between shocking in a positive way with an execution that makes you want something the moment you see it.\u201d<\/p>\n

TopGear.com: How is it being back where you started? Is there a full circle feeling?<\/h3>\n

Gilles Vidal<\/strong>: Well, you know everybody, you know the place. But the company is super different now. It\u2019s huge. I\u2019m joining at a time when everything is changing anyway, with Antonio Filosa (CEO) and Emanuele Cappellano (head of Europe). So everything is new for me but it\u2019s also new for those who never left, because there\u2019s a new mindset. There\u2019s an openness. Antonio is seeking more diversity to create more exciting versions of new products. A tonne of things were forbidden for the sake of simplicity, optimisation and efficiency, and now it\u2019s reopened. It\u2019s not 100 per cent an open bar but back to some\u2026 normal behaviour.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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You have a lot on your plate. What\u2019s the big plan?<\/h3>\n

Stellantis is still about creating synergies in terms of sharing platforms and components, but we also orchestrate differentiations. We will make sure we compete against the real competition and less between ourselves. So the branding is super important, and we need to avoid making clones, not just in terms of design but also in everything else you live and experience in the car.<\/p>\n

Design itself is a very subjective topic, a matter of taste, although maybe you can also judge it without the emotion. We want to talk about emerging design, finding a breakthrough with shocking ideas \u2013 in a good way, of course, in a world that is accelerating novelty.<\/p>\n

Can you give examples of how this approach could be applied?<\/h3>\n

Peugeot is exploring steer-by-wire and the hyper square steering wheel. It\u2019s about strong design and innovation, more breakthroughs, typified in the Polygon concept. Citro\u00ebn is accessible and affordable yet inventive. DS is now reaching a certain level of maturity. With Opel we want to push on the German quality and execution, Lancia can be very progressive.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also a challenge in the way we build cars in the factories. They could be transformed into something more efficient.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Electrification and autonomous driving are putting more emphasis on interior design. You\u2019ve always been progressive in that area.<\/h3>\n

Thirty years ago, when I started my career, there was only a dashboard and a steering wheel that we could give a bit of styling to. Now we are really designing an entire onboard experience, with an atmosphere and forms, materials, screen content, graphic design, user interaction. It\u2019s actually a room you live inside that\u2019s moving around. When you have 14 brands worldwide you put a lot of care and attention into crafting the experience of each one, so more driver-oriented for Peugeot or Alfa Romeo, more open and family-focused on a Fiat, Citro\u00ebn or Vauxhall.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m firmly against putting everything on a screen, I think we need more physical buttons and direct access. We\u2019re working on all sorts of things, some crazy stuff. The space you create can be another world. Services like Lyft or Uber will have specific use cases. But private cars can really be crafted.<\/p>\n

The success you had at Renault with the 4, 5 and Twingo surely suggests that a new 2CV could work for Citro\u00ebn. Or should it remain firmly future-focused?<\/h3>\n

It should be a clever mix of heritage, but we need to ask some basic questions first. Why was the original born? What was the brief, what was the context, and how does this idea make sense in the world of today? There\u2019s room for lots of things with simple, affordable cars. If it\u2019s a real car, rather than a quadricycle, how light should it be? What\u2019s the minimum you can do so that\u2019s super essential? There could be a car that\u2019s 3.8m-ish, one at 4m and another with four seats. So three sizes into which you could deliver that kind of stuff.<\/p>\n

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Alfa Romeo deserves to be shaken up a little bit<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Could you argue that the ELO concept is closer to a contemporary 2CV?<\/h3>\n

The ELO monobox is about habitability and modularity. If we manage to deliver an interior like this, maybe without the driver in the centre, it could be a hit because it\u2019s relevant as a product, it\u2019s functional. But we would need to trigger the love at first sight thing on the exterior, which at this point we don\u2019t have because it\u2019s too experimental. The power of what you see before any \u2018thinking\u2019 will trump anything else.<\/p>\n

Further up the hierarchy we have DS. Surely there\u2019s a temptation to a \u2018new\u2019 version of the original?<\/h3>\n

Retro futurism is a valid and relevant thing to do. But when the original DS appeared in 1955 it looked like a car from the future. Imagine it in the context of the time. If we do a new DS, it should be a spaceship, it should break the rules just as strongly as the original car did. Not science fiction weird, but as though a designer from 2100 did it. The circle is complete on the current range, so now we\u2019re working on the next step and thinking about where we want to take it.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s Maserati\u2026<\/h3>\n

Maserati is a bit like DS. We need to generate the next gen cars, the next two decades of Maserati styling. I\u2019m not talking about what cars we\u2019ll do, but the design cues, inside and out. We need a breakthrough, a big shift from what we have today. Every 20 years or so you can observe a complete shift in design language, and yet it\u2019s always a Maserati. The wavy life of this brand is very interesting, so what\u2019s next, because the loop is now theoretically finished. I\u2019m not telling you today but we\u2019ve started work on this.<\/p>\n

And Alfa Romeo?<\/h3>\n

It\u2019s a different question, for me. You know exactly what an Alfa Romeo should be. It\u2019s more coherent, but it deserves to maybe be shaken up a little bit. It needs to be red! And to have muscle, sensuality and stance. We have presentations and discussions, but in the end whatever we do should trigger the feeling that this is something you want, without intellectualising it.<\/p>\n

And you can trigger this emotion just as effectively with a \u20ac20,000 car. That\u2019s what I mean when I say \u2018iconic\u2019, or whatever word you want to use. Instant desirability. It\u2019s easy to say, but that\u2019s what we want to achieve.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Citro\u00ebn M\u00e9hari, Fiat Panda and, yes, Multipla, Lancia Delta Integrale, Maserati Ghibli \u2013 the original \u2013 and the actor Christophe Lambert jumping a 205 GTI over a ledge in 1985 French movie cult classic Subway\u2026 We\u2019re watching a Stellantis sizzle reel, bordering on a fever dream, but also a reminder of the scale of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,237],"class_list":["post-1886881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-topgear-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1886881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1886881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1886881\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1886881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1886881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1886881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}