Carlos Tavares, who has taken the helm of Stellantis, wants to give all the brands of the Fiat group a chance. With a doomed future, Lancia once again has a future. And the next models will be imagined under the responsibility of a French designer, Jean-Pierre Ploué.
Luca Napolitano, boss of the brand, has announced that Ploué will oversee the Lancia design center in Turin. So it will be extra work for the one who is the design director for the entire Stellantis group.
After graduating from ENSAAMA (National School of Applied Arts and Trades) in Paris in 1985, Jean-Pierre Ploué joined Renault. He notably worked on the first Twingo. After short stints at Volkswagen and Ford, he made his way to PSA in 2000, becoming Citroën’s design director.
He has thus largely worked to dust off the image of the chevon firm, notably with the first generation of the C4 and its astonishing coupe version. Above all, he was at the origin of the creation of the chic DS line of vehicles, which in 2014 became a brand in its own right. In 2008, he was appointed head of style for the PSA group, with a reinforced role in 2010 in the strategy to ensure the aesthetic distinction of brands.
In a statement, Jean Pierre Ploué said: “The rebirth of Lancia is a very exciting challenge. It is an iconic brand, to which we want to return the central role it played in the past in Europe, by exploiting its enormous potential”.
Challenge, the word is weak, because everything needs to be rebuilt for the brand, which has only one model on sale, only in Italy, the old city car Ypsilon. We must therefore reimagine an offer, an identity, a positioning. To do this, Lancia will take advantage of the sister car strategy desired by Carlos Tavares. Lancia will operate within a premium pole with Alfa Romeo and DS. A common base will be used by several models, with a maximum of shared non-visible elements. Only the look will change. This is how the new Corsa was designed, derived from the 208.
