Autocar’s Design Hero for 2026 stands out not only for a run of incredible cars but also his enthusiasm
This may sound odd, but what makes Julian Thomson – Autocar’s 2026 Design Hero – different from other distinguished car designers is that he remains as keen as he was 40 years ago to get on with designing great cars.
By the time they’ve had three or four successful decades in the job, many design greats have become managers and administrators, concerned mostly with what’s happening in some big company’s boardroom.
Admittedly, Thomson’s links are with one of the biggest – General Motors – but since 2022 he has been the driving force behind its all-new European Advanced Design studio in Warwick, England, where a tight-knit team is several years into producing original design proposals for the ‘mothership’ in Warren, Detroit. Longer-established studios in China, South Korea and California in the US do the same.
It stands to the credit of Thomson that GM’s then global head of design, Mike Simcoe, paused a plan to open a new European studio until he heard for certain that Thomson (who in mid-2021 had just left Jaguar) was definitely available for the new role. The two had hit it off in initial meetings and Simcoe, another very design-focused character, was willing to wait.
His reward was that by 2024 Thomson’s new studio had a carefully chosen team of 35 already working flat out on secret projects for GM’s Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, Buick and Hummer marques.
Then about a year ago, the Warwick studio hit the headlines with a futuristic, full-size son-of-Stingray proposal for a new Chevy Corvette, the first of three to flow from GM’s remote studios. More such commissions have followed.
Thomson has been very particular about choosing his team, unashamedly inviting close colleagues and friends if he knows they have the required skills. “It is vital to have people who understand the power of collaboration,” he says. “It’s amazing how much you can accomplish with a group prepared to work together. Our people understand about discussing things properly and about pooling ideas.”
Thomson’s innate desire to get on with creating cars reaches back to the earliest days in his career, when he went to work in a huge Ford design studio after graduating from the Royal College of Art in the mid-1980s. “I was a bit surprised it was so little like college,” he says. “People liked their jobs, but they didn’t have the urge to change things on the streets like we did.”
A chance to go to Lotus, where Peter Stevens was building a small design team, changed things completely. “Everything was exciting,” he says. “We went from a huge studio to a Portakabin, and they hadn’t even delivered the end of that, so we were open to the elements. I didn’t bat an eyelid.”
During that period Thomson designed one of his most famous cars, the original Lotus Elise, more revered today than ever. He still signs consignments of caps for the Lotus Drivers Club.
“I loved Lotus,” he said, “though what we did seems much more significant now than it did at the time. The great thing was that you touched every single bit of the company: I had friends in manufacturing, engineering, powertrain, electrical and I got to know all of their problems. We socialised with one another and built a lot of friendships.”
After a short stint at Volkswagen, Thomson began the career phase for which he is best known, as Jaguar’s advanced design director, working with its then design chief, Ian Callum.
Famous for their lively discussions, the pair forged a highly productive friendship that created a new design direction for Jaguar (via the XF), invented Jaguar’s SUVs (via the F-Pace) and moved it into the electrified era (via the I-Pace).
Thomson’s most prophetic work of all was to conceive a rule-breaking SUV concept called Land Rover LRX at the start of 2008. It became a smash sales success as the Range Rover Evoque and continues to sell strongly to this day.
However, Thomson and Callum left Jaguar within a year of one another after a 20-year partnership, when a new management decided the 100-year-old marque needed radical design changes.
Callum set up his own design consultancy, and within six months Thomson was engrossed with the first steps in the GM project. The Warwick studio has already become an implicit part of GM’s design portfolio, though visitors who know design often remark on its calm creativity, given the volume of its output.
Thomson regards this GM phase as one of the greatest eras of his design life. He points to a book on his shelves called Fins, which describes the life and career of the design pioneer Harley Earl, GM’s first true star of the studio.
“It feels amazing to be here, now, working for the company that invented the clay model, the design studio, the concept car and the modern way of creating cars. GM is very proud of all of this,” he says. “When I think about going through the various phases of my career to end up here, where it all began – and to actually be a part of it – well, it’s a great honour.”
