HOW HE BECAME A CAR DESIGNER

Gerry Mcgovern might have been an artist or an architect but was ‘discovered’ while still at school by Roy Axe, then head of design at Chrysler UK. “I’d been offered a place at Lanchester Polytechnic, now Coventry University,” says Mcgovern, “and through my art teacher’s contacts arranged a meeting with the second in command at Chrysler design. I turned up but was told my interviewer couldn’t do the meeting – he’d fallen off a ladder at home – and instead I’d be meeting Roy Axe, the top guy.

“Roy looked at my work, mostly non-car stuff, and I could see he liked it. I’d hurriedly drawn some cars but he didn’t think much of them. But he seemed to see something in me, and he also liked the idea of taking young designers very early so they could do a sandwich course at uni and learn a lot more while working. And that’s what happened.”

Mcgovern moved on to become a postgrad student on the Royal College of Art’s transport design course, but then rejoined Axe, who by then was head of design at British Leyland. He moved happily back into Axe’s orbit in 1982, working on the MG EXE concept car, the MG F roadster and the first, seminal Land Rover Freelander, a perfect introduction for his later career.