Gilles Vidal, who has returned to Stellantis as head of European design after a stint at Renault where he supervised the styling of models such as the Renault 5, Renault 4 and Twingo, outlined in an interview with Auto Express the direction he wants to bring to the group’s brands.
Stellantis design chief Gilles Vidal wants stronger brand identities
The French designer, who played a key role in Peugeot’s design transformation in the first decade of the 2000s, will work in coordination with Ralph Gilles, Stellantis’ global design chief, who reports directly to CEO Antonio Filosa. This deliberately short decision-making chain should ensure faster response times and greater autonomy for creative teams.
The central issue addressed by Vidal concerns the relationship between industrial synergies and the identity of individual brands. In recent years, one of the most frequent criticisms aimed at Stellantis has involved the excessive sharing of platforms, components and styling solutions among models from different brands. Former CEO Carlos Tavares strongly supported this approach, which helped contain development costs but also risked making vehicles that should speak different design languages look too similar.
Vidal acknowledged the problem and stressed that the final customer buys a Fiat, a Peugeot or a Jeep, not a Stellantis car. For this reason, each brand should receive a much clearer definition in terms of design and product positioning.
The goal is not to abandon shared platforms, which remain essential for economies of scale in a 14-brand group, but to use them with greater flexibility. This would give individual creative teams more freedom of intervention while still respecting the limits imposed by budgets and industrial programs.
The challenge looks especially complex for premium or strongly identity-driven brands such as Alfa Romeo, Maserati and DS, where technical sharing can create a perception of standardization that would clash with their respective missions. Vidal admitted that Stellantis still needs to resolve several issues in this area and has not yet made final decisions on how each brand will receive the attention it needs.
The first concrete signs of the group’s new design strategy could emerge at the Paris Motor Show in October, where Stellantis may begin to show how it intends to combine the efficiency of production synergies with the need to give each brand a more recognizable and independent design language.
