Legends: Wayne Cherry

Wheelbase Communications

The roll call of concept vehicles and innovative designs that were created on his watch reads like a list of automotive all-stars. The Chevrolet SSR. The Cadillac CTS and Sixteen concept. Hummers, too. Under designer Wayne Cherry’s direction, General Motors revealed more than 35 concept cars and trucks around the world. An award-winning designer, Cherry, now retired, is considered by many as the leader of a renaissance at GM and all of it occurred during some of the most financially challenging times for the automaker.

Born in Indianapolis, Ind., Cherry began his career in 1962 in GM’s advanced design studios after graduating from the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles, Calif. Three years later, after helping create the groundbreaking 1966 Oldsmobile Toronado and the first-generation Chevrolet Camaro, he transferred to Vauxhall Motors in England. It was considered a “temporary” assignment, although he returned to the United States 26 years later in 1991 and was named GM’s new design boss a year after that. As just the fifth design head in GM’s century-long history, Cherry quickly molded and sculpted the automaker’s product line. Usually soft-spoken and rarely outgoing, he wasn’t flashy and, mostly, he wasn’t forceful. He didn’t have to be as his designs said plenty. In North America, his first vehicles were the 1997 Chevrolet Corvette and the Impala SS. Later, Cherry helped bring Cadillac back to prominence with angular lines and a defined style. He found his greatest success with the CTS and the Escalade and his Cadillac Sixteen ultra-luxury concept car (below) was characterized as “breathtaking” by the automotive press. But his influence on advanced computer design and hiring practises was perhaps even more profound. He encouraged interactive plasma-screen reviews of products in two- and three-dimensional models. And he hired from other companies, not common at GM in the past. Cherry retired on Jan. 1, 2004, but he will not soon be forgotten. Ford’s J Mays even called the Cadillac Sixteen “the best damn piece of work to come out of GM styling since (former GM design boss) Bill Mitchell’s days.”