GM’s New Design Chief Is The Man Behind The PT Cruiser And I’m Excited

Something exciting is soon to happen within the halls of General Motors. Bryan Nesbitt, famous for his design portfolio which includes the Chrysler PT Cruiser and the Chevrolet HHR, will take the lead of GM Global Design this summer. While I’m sure no major shakeups are about to happen in GM design, I’m hoping for just the opposite. Let’s have some fun and make some unique neo-retro cars!

Nesbitt is scheduled to take the reins of GM Global Design on July 1. When he does so, Nesbitt will be filling in the shoes of Michael Simcoe, who will be retiring after an impressive 42-year ascension with General Motors. As we lead up to that handoff date, Simcoe will be winding down his role while also ensuring Nesbitt can have a smooth transition into position.

GM says that under Simcoe’s lead, GM Design was responsible for vehicles including the Cadillac Lyriq, the GMC Hummer EV, and the Chevrolet Equinox EV. As for his own designs, native Australian Simcoe is credited for work on the Holden Monaro (known in the United States as the Pontiac GTO), the 2000 and 2006 Holden Commodores, the Buick Avenir concept, and more.

Those are great cars to have on your resume, but the man taking his position has a very different line of cars under his name. That’s Bryan Nesbitt, the mand whose designs probably got some kids punched in the 2000s.

More Than Just PT Cruisers

The name Bryan Nesbitt has never ascended to such infamy as Adrian van Hooydonk, who loves BMW’s absurd massive grilles, or Chris Bangle, who was obsessed with big automotive butts. He’s neither a legend like Freeman Thomas, who penned the Audi TT, nor Giorgetto Giugiaro, who has his marks on everything from the Volkswagen Golf Mk1 to the DMC DeLorean. Instead, Nesbitt birthed a pair of cars that the collective car Internet loved to beat up. Well, at least that was the case until Elon Musk rolled a Tesla Cybertruck onto a stage.

But Nesbitt is far more than just the designer of the Chrysler PT Cruiser. According to Car Body Design, Nesbitt showed off his artistic talents at a young age, and his father loved that so much that he took a 12-year-old Nesbitt to the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. Nesbitt had a lot of inspiration growing up. He crisscrossed the country with his mom in an AMC Gremlin. Meanwhile, his dad was so addicted to Corvettes that it was the only kind of car he owned from 18 years of age onward. As Automotive Design and Production writes, Nesbitt’s childhood gave him a good sense of American culture and why things can be different than elsewhere.

Later, Nesbitt would intern at Chrysler’s Pacifica studio in California in the early 1990s. This didn’t translate to a job offer and when Nesbitt tried to go to GM, reportedly, he was told that his ideas were “unrealistic.”

Of course, Nesbitt’s first calling to fame was when he was hired on at Chrysler in 1994. A couple of years later, he was just 27 years old when Chrysler passed down the mission to create a retro ride for the future. Chrysler was properly weird back in those days and enlisted the help of French medical anthropologist and psychiatrist Dr. Clotaire Rapaille to find a car that would activate your “lizard brain.” Yep, Chrysler figured that repackaging the Neon into something retro was going to get all of America excited.

Chrysler let the young Nesbitt have a ton of fun designing the PT Cruiser. Chrysler’s brands kept teasing concepts including the custom Pronto Cruizer Concept, the Euro-style Plymouth Pronto, and the weird mid-engine Pronto Spyder. Nesbitt also got to pen the Citroën 2CV-inspired CCV concept back then. Ultimately, the production Chrysler PT Cruiser was nearly as wild as the concept and it was the perfect vehicle for the hot neo-retro craze. I mean, everyone was doing retro back then from the Volkswagen New Beetle to the Ford Thunderbird and the Chevrolet SSR.

After striking gold at Chrysler, GM took Nesbitt on in 2001 as Chief Designer for Chevrolet. He’d rise through the ranks before ending up as Executive Director for GM Europe Design in 2004.

While Nesbitt is not known for controversial styling elements like Chris Bangle’s love of flame surfacing, Automotive Design and Production notes that he had quite an important duty at GM Europe Design. He more or less had to do what VAG did with the Golf platform but with GM’s platforms. From Nesbitt as quoted by Automotive Design and Production: “No one gets the Audi TT, VW Beetle, and Golf confused as the same car.”

By 2007, Nesbitt’s name was on so many different cars. His portfolio of projects included the Buick Enclave, the Buick Lucerne, the Cadillac DTS and BLS, the Chevy Impala, the Chevy Cobalt coupe, the Pontiac Solstice, the Pontiac G6 coupe, the Saturn Aura, the Saturn Outlook, and the Saturn Sky.

Now, I will note that Nesbitt didn’t completely design all of these cars. Current Tesla design head Franz von Holzhausen usually gets the main credit for the Saturn Sky. Likewise, Nesbitt’s other polarizing design, the PT Cruiser-like Chevy HHR, was at least somewhat finished before he put on the finishing touches. Still, Nesbitt can take a little credit for some incredible cars. Nesbitt’s design stint for GM took him as far as China before returning to America in 2022 to head Global Cadillac Design.

Under his direction, GM says, Cadillac created its latest concept cars, the Opulent Velocity and the Sollei.

We don’t really know what Nesbitt will change as the senior vice president of GM Global Design. However, both GM and Nesbitt seem to imply the future is going to be bold. From GM:

[W]e’re thrilled to have Bryan step up to lead GM Design, where he will use his considerable talent and formidable leadership skills to take us into the future,” Reuss added. “He has a long history with all our brands, and a deep understanding of our customers. As seen in his recent work at Cadillac, his design statements are only getting better and bolder.”

For his part, Nesbitt says:

“I am honored to lead GM Design, which is home to some of the industry’s most talented and creative people. Our company, along with GM Design, has built momentum, and I’m committed to building on that ethos of vision, execution, and collaboration. Design will continue to be at the leading edge of identifying and adopting new technologies to improve speed to market and help meet the needs of customers into the future. Great design will always be the cornerstone of every vehicle we create.”

Time For A Rebirth

Now, to be clear, Nesbitt has not said anything about what’s going to happen. But, I’m a little crazy, so I’m going to suggest something absurd. Car enthusiasts constantly talk about how cars all look the same nowadays. Do you know what looked different and what stood out? The Chrysler PT Cruiser. Whether you shower their designs with praise or disdain, everyone has an opinion on the PT Cruiser and the Chevy HHR.

Yes, I know that kids invented a version of the Punch Buggy game for the PT Cruiser and yes, I know Doug DeMuro loved crushing a PT Cruiser with a Hummer. Lots of people hated the PT Cruiser. Yet, built 1.35 million PT Cruisers over ten years, so I’d wager that more people actually liked them than hated them.

At the same time, the Chrysler PT Cruiser also wasn’t just a shameless cash grab. In my experience, they were pretty roomy, relatively fuel-efficient, and were more or less just normal cars given weird bodies. Sometimes that’s just the perfect kind of car.

I think the HHR was even better. That car might have copied the PT Cruiser, but did so with a flat roof and seats that folded flat and level with the cargo floor. My wife and I turned her old HHR into a great micro camper. That thing regularly got over 30 mpg and was shockingly reliable. I’d love to take a spin in an HHR SS, which has the same hilarious 260 HP and 260 lb-ft of torque turbo engine my Saturn Sky Red Line has.

Sadly, both the PT Cruiser and the HHR were plagued with horrifying interiors. The HHR’s interior was especially bad, featuring Fisher Price-quality plastics and blind spots you could hide a semi-truck in. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

I’d love to see modern interpretations of both of these cars. Imagine a PT Cruiser or an HHR with modern interior materials, today’s safety, and today’s engines. Or, heck, maybe even make it a stupid quick EV or a thrifty extended-range EV. Dare I say, I would actually consider a new PT Cruiser if one existed like that. The retro craze isn’t over yet, either, but now the retro vehicles are SUVs, motorcycles, and VW vans.

Or maybe we don’t give those cars a rebirth, but perhaps we should have some cars in the same spirit. I’d love to see some cars with designs that take some risks, but they’re otherwise just normal practical vehicles underneath.

Again, I’m sure not a whole lot is going to change here, but I’m curious to see what direction we’ll see from GM in the coming months and years. But hey, a woman can dream, so give me that fresh take on the HHR. I swear there will probably be dozens of buyers!

(Images: Automakers, unless otherwise noted.)