I was a car-crazy kid – a Porsche-crazy kid, in fact. I ended up at the Royal College of Art in 1979, and tried to make my way into the car design world. To do this, I decided to enter a competition to design the MG of the ’80s. I didn’t win, but I was a runner-up and managed to get the centre of the cover of Motor. That was my initial claim to fame. There were a lot of edgy-looking cars that people were posing in, in those days – there was a lot of round softness. That part of my design philosophy was already being born, even then.
I didn’t manage to get into Porsche in the first instance; however, I did land in Germany, in Opel. I was working on the first study of the Vauxhall Calibra – but after five years in this business, you get itchy feet, and I applied to Porsche again. Lo and behold, I was accepted in 1986. I ended up spending 34 years at the company, which was great because everyone knew me. I was one of the infamous designers!
The language barrier was an issue to begin with. However, I had been at Opel for five years in Germany. With Opel being a General
