Giles Taylor is a British car designer. He is the current vice president of design and chief creative officer for the Chinese

state-owned State ownership, also called public ownership or government ownership, is the ownership of an industry, asset, property, or enterprise by the national government of a country or state, or a public body representing a community, as opposed to ...

FAW Group’s Hongqi marque. Taylor worked as a chief designer for

Rolls-Royce Rolls-Royce (always hyphenated) may refer to: * Rolls-Royce Limited, a British manufacturer of cars and later aero engines, founded in 1906, now defunct Automobiles * Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, the current car manufacturing company incorporated in ...

Jaguar The jaguar (''Panthera onca'') is a large felidae, cat species and the only extant taxon, living member of the genus ''Panthera'' that is native to the Americas. With a body length of up to and a weight of up to , it is the biggest cat spe ...

and as an exterior designer for

Citroën Citroën ()The double-dot diacritic over the 'e' is a diaeresis () indicating the two vowels are sounded separately, and not as a diphthong. is a French automobile brand. The "Automobiles Citroën" manufacturing company was founded on 4 June 19 ...

. His designs include the eighth generation Rolls-Royce Phantom and the redesigned Jaguar XJ (X351).

Education

Taylor studied automobile design in Coventry, England, before attending the Royal College of Art in London.

Career

Citroen

Taylor undertook his first car design job for Citroen in 1997 aged twenty nine. The vehicle in question was the Citroën Xsara. Taylor claims that Citroen headhunted him after he left the

Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public university, public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City, London, White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design uni ...

. He posits that he was one of several designers to submit sketches, but Citroen adopted his. Taylor oversaw the Xsara's exterior design through to the production stage. Taylor claims that he based the design on the

Citroën Xantia The Citroën Xantia (pronounced "Zan–ti–a") is a large family car (D-segment, D) produced by the French automaker Citroën, and designed by Gruppo Bertone, Bertone. Presented to the press in December 1992, the car was produced between 1992 a ...

Jaguar

Taylor joined Jaguar Cars in 1997 and worked for the organisation for fourteen years, latterly as the chief exterior designer. Taylor was the chief exterior designer of the Jaguar XJ (X351). It replaced Jaguar’s traditional sedan, whose shape had not altered since 1968. Taylor claimed that the car cost four hundred million dollars to produce and that executives initially challenged some of its features, such as the blacked-out C column. The XJ debuted in July 2009 at London’s Saatchi Gallery. Taylor then exhibited the car at a selection of automobile design schools in the autumn of 2009, including the Pratt Institute and the Parsons School of Design in New York, the

ArtCenter College of Design The ArtCenter College of Design is a private art college in Pasadena, California. It was incorporated in 1930 as a degree-granting institution of higher learning in the US created specifically for students of both the visual arts and design. ...

in Pasadena, and the

College for Creative Studies The College for Creative Studies (CCS) is a private art school in Detroit, Michigan. It enrolls more than 1,400 students and focuses on arts education. The college is also active in offering art education to children through its Community Arts ...

in Detroit. In 2010 Taylor headed the design of the Jaguar XJ75 Platinum Concept that marked the brand’s seventy-fifth anniversary. Its exterior design employed a black-and-white colour scheme, while the interior styling included a clock co-designed with the Bremont Watch Company. Taylor also worked on the Jaguar XK and XJ series. He left the organisation in 2011.

Rolls-Royce

Taylor joined Rolls-Royce Motor Cars as head of exterior design in 2011, replacing Ian Cameron as head of design the following year. He was responsible for the interior and exterior design of the Ghost and Phantom series, among others. He left the organisation in September 2018. During his time at Rolls-Royce, Taylor worked as a stylist for the Phantom VIII. He oversaw the design of the 2016 Dawn. Taylor designed the Cullinan, the marque’s first sports utility vehicle.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Taylor, Giles British automobile designers Living people Year of birth missing (living people) FAW Group people Rolls-Royce people Alumni of the Royal College of Art