Design Trends - An Interview with J. Mays

May 13, 2002 - Core Jr. recently caught up with J. Mays, Vice President of Design for the Ford Motor Company, after his 'Road Trip" presentation, hosted by the Smithsonian 's Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museumin New York City. After convincing his press agent to spare a few minutes of Mr. Mays' time, we had a chance to ask a few questions:

Core Jr.: Looking at so-called retro styles that have been resurfacing (and in some cases just surfacing), for example VW's Bug, Chrysler's PT Cruiser, and Ford's Thunderbird, it seems they've each had a different path of development, but all seem to try to tap into both a new and an older market base, re-evaluating "retro" values, aligning with those consumer cultural touch points you mentioned in the presentation. Could you comment on this, does retro-redesign success really need a prior model to work with, or not, and how do you explain these three different models?

J: Those are three really good examples. I guess the short answer is yes, I think in order for a product to be successful if it has some sort of retrospective attributes to it, then it needs to have the ability to anchor or lock on to what I call an authentic history. The Thunderbird and the Beetle do that in many ways. Although the PT cruiser is quite successful, it's actually locking onto a fraudulent history because much of the inspiration for that vehicle was not, in fact, a Chrysler, but rather a Ford, I think a '37 Ford to be exact. So, there is a slight disconnect there in terms of authenticity, to your point about the car being a success. However, it's a tremendous success because it's one of the most innovative ways to re-skin or put a new top hat on what is essentially a mini-van that I've seen, and so my comments are in no way a criticism of the vehicle. I think it may have just slightly missed its audience in terms of the demographic because it skewed slightly towards an older audience in terms of the people I see driving them, anyway.

Core Jr.: Do you think we'll see a similar theme in the SUV arena, especially looking at the Cadillac and Lincoln...seems they've enjoined a new SUV battle among a certain urban set, that looks to recreate the '70s Eldorado vs. Continental battle: which is longer, which can get bigger, which can be more attractive to this particular urban demographic and urban cultural identity...what does the future hold for this market, what's the Escalade vs. Navigator feud going to propel?

J: It's a good analogy, actually, first of all, relating it back to the Eldorado vs. the Continental, and, ironically or interestingly, what's happening today very much mirrors that mind set of the late '50s or early '60s, in so much that even then Cadillac was much more of a "look at me" brand, in terms of their design DNA, whereas the Lincoln was slightly quieter and slightly less ostentatious in their overall design cues. I think you're seeing that mirrored again in the products that are coming out to market now. There's no denying the presence of an Escalade when you see it on the road, yet if I had to say from pure design terms what holds together better, from my eye at least, I'm probably prejudiced, but, it would be the Navigator.

We've been concentrating on a very "one foot in front of the next" evolution of the original Navigator, in particular on the interior concentrating on what, I believe, has been said, "is the highest quality, best crafted interior of any car produced in the United States" with the new Navigator, that has just been launched even as we speak. Conversely, the Aviator, the smaller brother to that Navigator, has exactly that same design. You see Cadillac going in one direction and Lincoln in another, ultimately the customer will decide if there's room for both of those or if there is one right or wrong answer. It would not be for me to say that Cadillac is a wrong answer.

Core Jr.: So, it's all up to the consumer. A little bit back to the retro designs, we know how the recent VW came out with a nice little bud vase next to the driver as a handy accoutrement. We look at our favorite Ford brands, the different demographics they tap into...like the Crown Victoria, seen as cop cars and taxi cabs, the Ford F-150, which I think is the #1 selling pickup truck of all time...

J: That vehicle has, for the last 25 years, been the best selling vehicle in the world. We sell about 900,000 units a year. There's not another vehicle that comes close to that.

Core Jr.: That fact may make my question irrelevant, but do you ever see the time when accouterments or additions will be added to these stable items like the Crown Vic or F150 as we saw with the BUG, something completely unrelated to the performance of the vehicle, like that little bud vase, but that can connect to a "consumer touch point?"

J: Well let me touch on the Crown Vic really briefly. The CV is a perennial favorite, we recently touched up on it: 95% of all taxis in NYC are CVs; 75% of all police cars nationwide are Crown Vics. That is really the market we go after with that vehicle, and we continue to update the vehicle; with rack and pinion steering, with front and rear suspension upgrades, lower amounts of noise, vibration, harshness; to keep the vehicle current, but I wouldn't say that vehicle represents the future where Ford is going. And so, because of that being a vehicle that's really for professional use rather than personal use you probably won't see those features popping up there. The F150, on the other hand, is about to go through its newest iteration next year and we will bring out an all new vehicle that will divide a customer segmentation of those 900,000 customers up into manageable allotments of certain ranges; I'll touch on three of them: people that are interested in family transportation or workhorses in the field, people that are looking for image and power with either a 4x2 or 4x4, and all the way up to people that are looking for something that I call "truck luxury," which is a new aspect of what a truck really can do in this country. A truck is no longer a utility vehicle, it is a lifestyle vehicle. So, in order to make the vehicle easily upgradeable to those various lifestyles, we've had to make the vehicle modular in such a way that allows us to retro-fit the vehicle with various components or features that start to speak to those individual markets.

Core Jr.: So, instead of the bud vase, maybe we'll seea gun rack add on for the Crown Vic cop car, or for the new 150 pickup?

J: (laughs) You won't see a gun rack being sold by Ford, let's put it that way.

Core Jr: that's good to hear, I guess. Finally I'll ask a human-interest-type of question...I know you said it's hard to draw analogies between fashion and the auto industry, but another Core friend, in a similar position in the sporting apparel industry, talks of the excursions that he encourages his designers to do, trips to ball parks to observe people playing ball and different types of experience, especially in an inner city providing important stimuli, he even mentioned a speak-easy type of a secret shoe society (we heard some interesting tales about that)...what are some of your experiences with this type of hands-on market research to discover more about the cultural identity and what is happening in the mind set of the people who are your customer base?

J: Well, I'm a firm believer that the spy with the most information wins. And so we have people located all over the world whether it be in Tokyo, London, Melbourne, Brazil, or right here in the United States that are constantly collecting, assimilating, and cataloguing newest cultural trends and design information for us. How we choose to use that information is dependant on the projects we have coming down the road. All that information is alluding to what I was talking about in my talk tonight, a cultural overlay that you can apply to the design of any product, which is a huge help in bringing meaning to a product.

Core Jr.: Are there any particular "overlays of this culture" that you can clue us into that might say affect the way you are reintroducing the F150 or any of your other lines?

J: The idea that people in the southwestern part of the United States from Texas to New Mexico, to Nevada, to California and probably also in Georgia and Florida on the other side of the country are part of this mosaic society that I was talking about earlier on the one side they are all wearing cowboy hats and on the other side you have people really interested in luxury products. If you combine those two you have this idea we're calling "truck luxury" and this will drive much of our redesigns of that line...

Core Jr.: Now, let's really get into the...

Press Agent: We really must be going now, J....