Klaus Busse isn't your stereotypical German designer. For a start he cracks one-liners through official presentations -- and at a furious pace. When a photo of German chancellor Angela Merkel appears, on cue he quips "that is not a super model"...
A ten-year veteran of Mercedes-Benz ("it almost sounds like a prison sentence"), he joined the team designing Ram trucks in the mid-noughties and quickly learned not to wear pastel colours to Texas truck gatherings. When Daimler and Chrysler divorced in 2007 he did a very un-Germanic thing and stayed in the USA.
He's permanently out of pastel polos now but he has also banned black -- from both his wardrobes and his interiors (MS: well, almost -- apparently not in video snippet below however!!!)... Oh, and he also carries a small river pebble around in his pocket*...
Since 2009 Busse has been the head of Chrysler Group's head of interior design. He faced and continues to face a not inconsiderable battle -- to bring the once stricken, but now reborn US company's interiors up to world standard.
The Grand Cherokee is the first of the new generation Chrysler Group vehicles to get a Busse-approved interior. It's not all-new, he laments -- there are carryover components included in the execution -- but it's a huge step forward, for Jeep in particular, and the Chrysler Group as a whole.
"The biggest challenge for us over the course of the development [of the Grand Cherokee interior] was not so much coming up with a shape [design], but more elevating the company in terms of how we do interiors of general fit and finish, the right choice of materials, et cetera," Busse told motoring.com.au during a ride-along at the recent Grand Cherokee launch on Moreton Island.
"You know it's always embarrassing that I have to mention it, but this armrest [on the Grand Cherokee's centre console] -- now it can be called an armrest. It's the same with the switch gear... Everything you touch has a good quality feel -- and this amount of attention to detail had to be retrained. The people at Chrysler, they're great engineers, great designers, and we just had to remind them of their skills in just doing the best for the customer."
Busse says he is working to apply a consistent vision of quality and design across the Chrysler brands. That doesn't mean he's looking for 'same same' interiors or, indeed, to just follow European marques.
"We want the four brands [Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge and Ram] to have their own aesthetic form language, their own soul -- their own dream to the customer -- when it comes to how they're executed in terms of design and perception. However, when it comes to solving a problem, like what is the best aircon outlet? What is the best glovebox opening mechanism? I don't need four different systems for all four different brands; I need the perfect system to solve the problem," he explains.
"But when it comes to drawing the line between A and B... In this case with Jeep [is differentiated by], having a hexagonal shape on the top of the instrument panel... Chrysler has more of a flowing, hand-drawn quality, and then Dodge has much more attitude and a driver-orientated cockpit.
"My job is to make sure that a Dodge looks like a Dodge, especially with where we want to take Dodge. And I will let you be the judge once these [new] vehicles come out whether I was successful or not."
The decision to badge Chrysler products Lancia in European markets -- and perhaps even launch Lancia products Down Under via Chrysler has been controversial. Is it consistent with this approach, we asked Busse.
"That's something that we had to digest first and had to think about, but when you actually look back at your history, there are plenty of examples where that [the merging of Italian and US styling] was done very, very successfully," he explained.
Busse's first example is the Italian lake district's famous boating marque, Riva.
"Carlos Riva, when he took over the company in 1950 from his father and turned it into what we now know as Riva Boats, guess what his inspiration was? He was inspired by, you know, American style and these images of these beautiful Chris Craft boats from Lake Michigan.
"He even travelled to Michigan and visited Chris Craft, and for the first he even used Chris Craft engines. So that gives you a perfect example of how you can combine Italian flair with the American style."
Busse quotes Lancia concept cars with almost Lincoln-like rectangular lines and others with fins of which Detroit would have been proud.
"If you look at even beyond the automotive or transport industry -- you look at the movie industry, right? Dean Martin, the whole Rat Pack thing -- where they mix American and Italian culture. So there's a lot of connection between those two countries. And so you know, after initially scratching our heads about that, we found plenty of opportunities to play that between Lancia and Chrysler too."
Busse says he instructs his interior design team to make the most of the American-ness of his brands. He says a prime example is the next-generation 300C, due Down Under in 2012.
The interior design boss says the second-generation 300C has "grown up" but that it has retained its unique US-centric look and feel.
"It's always tough to judge it from inside America, but talking to our partners outside the USA, the feedback we got is when people drive by in a 300, they want that piece of America.
"I think with the exterior [of the first generation], we were pretty happy, and so were our customers. On the interior, I don't think it was as successful... but that's one of the things that I hope we were able to fix on the new model," he states.
"We felt [in the new generation] the 300 had grown up -- so it wasn't this kind of over self-confident, young boy, young man anymore; it got a little more sophisticated... We selected better materials. Although the current 300 here in Australia already has a soft instrument panel, now we have softer materials, better quality materials, better leathers, better-smelling leather..."
Busse says the new Grand Cherokee is a significant step along the way to the level the team has set with the new 300C.
"I'm sick of making excuses [about previous quality], okay? And so we're working seven days a week, literally seven days a week, to get over that... One of the enablers is to get out of design office and tear down this perception of the design office being this ivory tower... That we're living on this lone island and just having fun there... I think what you're going to see [quickly] is how we execute [these changes].
"There are still a few components in here [the Grand Cherokee cabin] that are carry-over from the previous generation -- that we couldn't change; others parts that got designed for this vehicle, you'll get that higher quality impression. But it's a lengthy process...
"But I think if you compare this [Grand Cherokee] to, you know, where we came from [you'll be impressed].
"You're comparing us with, in your mind, almost with a Mercedes [ML] here when you talk about switches and the premium feel. But I think our competitor in this market is the Ford Territory. So I challenge you to put this vehicle next to that [Ford] vehicle and tell me if we're out of the ballpark. Having said that, my aspiration of course is, you know, to send a nice letter to my friends in Stuttgart saying, 'Check this one out.'"
* Busse's river pebble is a talisman he used when his team designed the interior for the Grand Cherokee. He says "though it's as hard as, well, a rock, it is also smooth and has a texture that's cool and pleasant to touch." He says he uses it as a 'guide' when comparing the finishes on hard surfaces...
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