If we mention the name Mark Adams below, there are no doubt a few of you who won’t be able to place him on the global design scene. Yet he is a talented designer who spent more than twenty-four years at Opel, becoming the brand’s head of design in 2007 and also holding the post of head of design for the Cadillac and Buick brands in 2012/2013.
Mark Adams, Vice-President of Design at Opel, born in 1961, is someone LIGNES/auto holds in high regard, as he did not hesitate, in the late 2000s, to spend a whole day in London with the editorial team of the print edition of LIGNES/auto, pictured below. He may be leaving his post, which would raise the question of who will replace him. Recent appointments to head brand design within the Stellantis Group have often been made from within the company (Thierry Métroz from Citroën to DS, Matthias Hossann from Peugeot to… Peugeot). So, when it comes to finding a new head of design at Opel, will the same approach be taken?
The case of Gilles Vidal (Citroën, then Peugeot, Renault and… Stellantis) is undoubtedly an exception… though not quite one. Having joined Citroën in 1996, three years before Jean-Pierre Ploué, he remained with the PSA Group – which had since become Stellantis – until 2020. He then took over as head of design at Renault. Just five years later, he returned ‘home’ to take up the post of design director for Stellantis’s ‘wider Europe’ brands. The very role previously held by Jean-Pierre Ploué… (read the exclusive interview with Jean-Pierre Ploué here:
There he was reunited with Matthias Hossann, who was heading up design at Peugeot, with whom he had enjoyed some truly wonderful projects (notably the Legend and Instinct concept cars). At DS Automobiles, he was reunited with Thierry Métroz (below left), whom Jean-Pierre Ploué had recruited in 2010 to head up Citroën’s design department, before he went on to become head of design for the new DS Automobiles brand, now run by Citroën.
At Citroën, in fact, Gilles Vidal is reunited with Pierre Leclercq, pictured below with the ELO concept car. The story goes that it was Vidal who mentioned Leclercq to Jean-Pierre Ploué when the latter was looking for a head of design for the chevrons brand in 2018. Gilles then met the other design directors from Stellantis’ European brands.
At Fiat, it is a Frenchman, François Leboine, who has been in the role since 2021. And at Opel, it is Mark Adams who is set to lead the brand’s design for a few more months. Should his departure go ahead, a replacement would need to be found. Bearing in mind the potential arrival of a designer from outside the Stellantis group – which remains a possibility – there would still be a few internal options, though not that many.
The first thought that springs to mind is Thierry Métroz, pictured above, Head of Design at DS Automobiles – a brand now run by… Citroën. What is the current situation regarding the role of Head of Design at DS? Will it be scrapped? Will it still be in Métroz’s hands? He is closer to retirement than to a new grand departure. But he remains extremely motivated. That said, since we’re talking about appointing a new head of design at Opel, why not play a game of three-card monte?
Matthias Hossann, pictured above, at Opel? No: he’s too deeply involved in Peugeot’s new identity, set to debut with the 208 in 2027, and, above all, he’s deeply committed to the Lion. Thierry Métroz? We’ve just seen that it’s unlikely he’ll be moving back and forth between DS and Opel. François Leboine? He is still the young head of design at Fiat, and the company has just changed its CEO with the arrival of Arnaud Belloni. That leaves… Pierre Leclercq, pictured below, who has been in charge of design at Citroën since 2018.
The idea would not be far-fetched, given that the Belgian, together with his teams and the new boss Xavier Chardon, has played a major part in getting Citroën back on track. That is to say, with a clear vision and an equally clear positioning for the end of this decade and the early 2030s. He has also successfully completed the complete overhaul of the entire range. And he will even unveil the revival of the 2CV at the Paris Motor Show next October (below, a non-binding concept image). Any designer will tell you (first and foremost Gilles Vidal, who explained this to LIGNES/auto) that completely revamping several model ranges can prove exhausting for a creative professional.
Pierre Leclercq to head up Opel’s design? This would make sense, as the German brand lacks the clear vision that Citroën possesses. It occupies a middle ground within the Stellantis group, between Citroën and Peugeot, and its current designs are essentially based on revamped Peugeot models (the 208 for the Corsa, the 308 for the Astra) and Citroën models (the C3 Aircross for the Frontera, pictured below). Admittedly, this is the case for many brands within Stellantis, but it is particularly striking at Opel.
Pierre Leclercq could thus draw on his wealth of experience to set a clear new direction and breathe new life into Opel’s design. In that case, the Stellantis Group would be back to square one: Pierre Leclercq would need to be replaced as Citroën’s head of design. As there would no longer be any option to draw on current design directors – with the exception of Thierry Métroz (though he has already served as Citroën’s design director!) – the search would then have to turn to those in supporting roles who are not really just that: namely, designers with considerable experience but who are not often talked about.
In this case, one simply needs to follow the personnel movements that have taken place from Renault to Stellantis and from Stellantis to Renault, particularly those that have occurred recently following Gilles Vidal’s (above) return to Stellantis after his spell at Renault. The ‘right-hand men’ of senior executives often follow them when they move to another manufacturer. During the Stellantis-Renault ‘transfer window’ in 2020, numerous designers left Stellantis for Renault, and the same happened in the opposite direction.
He is a highly competent ‘right-hand man’ and a low-key designer who faithfully followed Gilles Vidal to Renault in 2021: Sandeep Bhambra, pictured above, who was then head of concept cars and advanced development at Peugeot, and was notably responsible for the design of the 2012 Onyx motor show prototype. He naturally took up the same role at Renault, and played a major part in defining the range of future Renault models and the numerous concept cars of the Vidal era at Renault (2020–2025).
And guess who has just left Renault Design to join the Stellantis Group this past April? Sandeep Bhambra himself! A loyal follower of Vidal. And, just as Vidal has logically risen through the ranks of designers at Stellantis, one imagines that Sandeep Bhambra would have accepted this return in the hope, too, of climbing a few rungs in the Stellantis design hierarchy. So, has the circle now been completed? What if he were to become the future head of design at Citroën? Bhambra, Métroz… Place your bets – everything’s fine.
