loss in 2003 to a $1.3 billion profit in the first nine months of 2004. In all, 2004 was a banner year for the 34-year-old artist from Montreal, Canada’s black community. And it all began with pencils at a kitchen table. Gilles was six when he started sketching. When he was 15, he spent the summer with his Aunt Gisele on Long Island and she watched him drawing.
“My aunt saw my sketches,” Gilles recalled, “and she turned to her husband and said ‘Hey Jean! My nephew can draw! Give him some paper to draw on.’ ”
So he began sketching wherever he went, passing dull mo- ments in school with fanciful drawings of cars and other modes of transport. At 15, Gilles wrote a letter to Chrysler head Lee Iacocca, asking what it would take to become a design artist for the giant car company. “And wow, they wrote me back,” he said. “I was so im-
pressed. They wrote giving the different names of colleges they hire from, and that was all I needed. I felt a certain loyalty to Chrysler because they wrote me, and it changed my life.” Gilles attended the College of Art and Design in Detroit, which trained about 40 percent of Chrysler’s designers, and went to work for the firm after graduating in 1992. Within a decade he had worked his way up to head Studio #3 in Auburn Hills, Michi- gan, one of the company’s seven design studios. Gilles equates the design studio with a movie lot.
“I direct a studio to draw,” he said. “We get together with the other team members and exchange ideas. It’s like when you make a movie, and you talk about the scenes in the movie before you film the thing. “It’s like that with cars. No one person designs a car.” For 2011, the Chrysler Group has been pumping out an unprecedented number of redesigned and updated vehicles. The Dodge brand alone has six all-new or significantly redesigned vechicles in dealer showrooms this year, including the all-new Dodge Durango, the all-new Dodge Charger, and the significant- ly upgraded Dodge Grand Caravan, Dodge Challenger, Dodge Avenger and Dodge Journey, which feature all-new interiors, new engines and new suspensions. The team also is working on a next-generation Dodge Viper. The Chrysler brand took the stage at the 2011 North American International Auto Show in Detroit to introduce its all-new 2011 Chrysler 300, which stood on stage with the new Chrysler Town & Country minivan and the new Chrysler 200. The company also recently showed new images of its redesigned Chrysler 200 Convertible.
And the Chrysler team is working with the Italian design shops to redesign the Fiat 500, a popular small European car, to meet American tastes.
Gilles has a track record of producing exciting, crowd-pleas- ing cars. Chrysler’s future rests on his ability to do it again.
88 USBE&IT I WINTER 2011
www.blackengineer.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136