Geely design boss Horbury gets Volvo's sister brand to think big

GOTHENBURG, Sweden -- The Briton who smoothed out Volvo's boxy lines and put signature radiator grilles on Lincolns for Ford is aiming to give China's Geely more global appeal by ditching its utilitarian image.Peter Horbury is central to efforts by Volvo sister brand Geely -- long seen as a cheap, no-frills brand in China and unknown in the West -- to push upmarket and go international by tapping European design and technology.Zhejiang Geely Holding's purchase of Volvo from Ford in 2010 has helped Geely quickly gain decades of r&d expertise. Meanwhile, the tie-up has enabled the Swedish automaker to sell more vehicles in China than anywhere else and will result in a common platform for Volvo and Geely compacts.From our archives: Geely's Horbury takes his auto design cues from a nation's styleBut Geely has a long way to go in a sector suffering from overcapacity and stiff competition.Horbury, who headed up design at Volvo in the 1990s and oversaw it for Volvo, Jaguar, Aston Martin and Ford's other brands from 2002, says carmakers should play up their roots, citing what he called the "Hi, I'm Dave" all-American appeal of his Lincoln grille. "I'm not suggesting we'll do cars with pagoda roofs, but all new cars have a little signature somewhere that's Chinese," Horbury, Geely's chief designer since 2011, told Reuters at the Swedish design studio where he spends three weeks a month.

Geely design boss Horbury gets Volvo's sister brand to think big

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