I’d describe myself as a design nut, as opposed to a car design nut,’ says Gerry McGovern, Land Rover’s design director and the man behind the Evoque, the multiaward- winning SUV that has helped elevate the Land Rover and Range Rover brands to luxury status. ‘Yes, I’m a car designer,’ he continues, ‘but I’m interested in all aspects of design, whether it’s architecture, product design, furniture design or whatever.’
A glance around McGovern’s own home, a neomodernist villa in the rolling Warwickshire countryside, is all that’s needed to verify this statement. The place is immaculate, and furnished with icons of mid-century design that include Eero Saarinen’s tulip chairs in the kitchen and Jacobsen’s swan chairs in the living room. McGovern designed the house himself, with help from his architect friend Adrian Baynes, and the three-year project fulfilled a long-held ambition.
‘My design heroes tend to be architects – people such as Mies van der Rohe, Philip Johnson and John Lautner,’ says McGovern. ‘Ironically, Adrian had always wanted to be a car designer and I had always wanted to be an architect, so we decided we’d build a house together.’
McGovern says the house, with its clean lines and sense of understated luxury, epitomises his design philosophy, and though it might be a stretch to compare a modern Range Rover to a modernist building, the company’s latest 4×4, the Evoque, is designed to exude a similar sense of elegance.
As Land Rover’s most highly designed car to date, the Evoque has helped the company reach out to different kind of consumer. According to McGovern, 80 per cent of people buying the Evoque have never bought a Land Rover before and 70 per cent have never bought an SUV before.’ Not so long ago the rich and famous drove sports cars; increasingly, they are opting for SUVs. With this in mind, Range Rover employed Victoria Beckham as a design consultant on the Evoque project, a move that has helped ensure its status as a luxury product. Beckham had little to do with the car’s actual design, aside from creating a specially customised version, but her involvement helped bring kudos to the project.
Born in Coventry in 1956, McGovern says he was ‘highly visually aware from an early age’. While still at secondary school he was introduced to Roy Axe, who was then design director at Chrysler. Under Axe’s direction, Chrysler sponsored McGovern’s degree at Lanchester Polytechnic (now Coventry University) where he studied industrial design before attending the Royal College of Art in London, specialising in automotive design.
After graduating he went the USA and worked for Chrysler in Detroit. On returning to the UK he worked for Chrysler Peugeot before joining the Rover Group, where he was the lead designer of its MGF sports car and Land Rover Freelander. He worked for Ford after being head-hunted in 1999, and rejoined Land Rover in 2004. In 2006 he became design director, becoming a member of the Land Rover board of management in 2008 and the Jaguar Land Rover executive committee the following year.
As the first designer to sit on Land Rover’s board of directors McGovern has been instrumental in promoting the importance of design to a brand that has traditionally been marketed on what it can do rather than how it looks. ‘The Evoque has become a catalyst for change in our business,’ he says. ‘It represents the realisation that the design cannot be a consequence of the engineering or the manufacturing. Design has to be something that’s at the very core of your brand and has to be given a very high priority. I think that design has to create an emotional connection,’ he says.
McGovern says environmental sustainability, as well as luxury and performance, must be at the heart of modern automotive design. Land Rovers, and SUVs in general, have a reputation as gas guzzlers, but he says Land Rover is working hard to make its cars less harmful to the environment. The Evoque is the smallest, lightest and therefore most-efficient car Land Rover has ever produced, and McGovern says there’s even better to come.
‘Sustainability is of massive importance,’ he says, ‘but that can manifest itself is many different ways in a vehicle. We’re investing in more sustainable technology and recycled materials, but one of the most important aspects is weight. All next-generation Range Rovers will be on aluminium frames, so they will be considerably lighter than the current models.’
I wonder if McGovern feels that in changing people’s perceptions of Land Rover and Range Rover there’s a danger that the brand will lose some of what made it unique and successful in the first place. ‘We have a unique essence and we have to respect that,’ he says, ‘but on the other hand it’s important not to let it hold you back.
‘What I’ve tried to do is help the business recognise the relevance of design in a modern context. Design, in my view, is the biggest differentiator in the market place. Once technology has become comparable and once quality becomes comparable from one brand to another, what are you left with? You’re really left with the design. I think there has been a realisation in the business that if you need to create something that truly resonates on an emotional level, the way you get to that emotional level is through design.’
