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Peter Horbury: The Interpreter Moves InInside Ford Motor Co.'s top-secret design studio, stylists gather around a hulking clay model of a work-in-progress pick-up truck.
Their boss, Peter Horbury, sweeps in, throws off his suit coat and declares: "Let's do some designing, shall we?" But while the workhorse vehicle before him is quintessentially American, Horbury, who moved to Detroit only last year, speaks like a proper British gentleman; until a year ago he was designing Jaguars.
"I'm learning to speak truck," he confesses.
Ford's new U.S. design director is best known for having given Volvo a Swedish-style makeover; now he's intent on bringing out Ford's American spirit.
His charter is to draw up a bold new look for the automaker's mainstream cars to help reverse a decadelong skid in sales.
With gas prices soaring to record levels, Ford's SUV sales are plummeting at what CEO Bill Ford calls a "breathtaking" pace.
Guzzler fatigue is finally bringing the traditional family car back in style, but Chrysler's hip-hop 300C is getting all the buzz, while Ford's Five Hundred sedan has been dismissed as far too sedate.
Enter Horbury, 55, who promises to design cars "with a distinct face that you see coming from down the road."
Since moving to the States, Horbury has been immersing himself in America's love of large, buying a 7,000-square-foot moder
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