As GM’S fifth design boss in nearly 100 years, he was a quiet man who let his work do all the talking

In the world of automotive design, where each crease has a meaning and every crevice has a story, Wayne Cherry was a wiggle in a world of straight lines.

In an era of pop-star obsessions over designers and their creations, General Motors’ former North American design boss was the anomaly.

He was a Midwestern boy with a global outlook; a soft-spoken executive whose artwork spoke volumes.

Not extravagant like GM’s former product czar Robert Lutz. Not a cult figure like Ford design whiz J Mays. And definitely not a conversation piece the way BMW designer Chris Bangle has been.

Cherry always preferred the shadows. He let his vehicles take the spotlight.

“I’m probably biased, but I think that design is terribly important,” he once told The Car Connection, an automotive Web site. “But we (designers) shouldn’t get in the way.”

In 42 years at GM, the last dozen years as its leading designer, Cherry always avoided being in the way.

But his products shook the landscape.

The roll call of concepts and innovative designs that were created on his watch reads like a list of automotive all-stars.

The Chevrolet SSR. The Pontiac Solstice. Cadillacs. Chevy trucks. And Hummers.

Under Cherry’s direction, GM revealed more than 35 concept cars and trucks around the world, more than any other automaker in such a brief period.

An award-winning designer, Cherry, now retired and in his 70s, is considered by many as the leader of a design renaissance at GM. And all of it occurred during some of the most challenging times, financially, 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 firstgeneration Chevrolet Camaro — two cars that would become cult classics — he transferred to Vauxhall Motors in Luton, England. It was considered a “temporary” assignment. He returned to the United States . . . 26 years later.

During his time in Europe, Cherry climbed the corporate ladder, leading the design direction for Vauxhall and Opel. He established a new identity for European cars and trucks and would help bring GM Europe to No. 1 in overall sales through vehicles like the Corsa, Vectra and Omega, to name a few.

Cherry returned to North America in 1991 and was named GM’s new design boss a year later.

As just the fifth design boss in nearly 100 years of GM history Cherry quickly molded, shaped, sculpted and stamped the automaker’s product line.

Usually soft-spoken and rarely outgoing, a one-liner was just that with Cherry . . . a one-liner. He wasn’t flashy. And, mostly, he wasn’t forceful.

Even with GM struggling over money woes, he had work to do and his designs said plenty.

“Frankly, we had to rebuild an awful lot of bridges (in the early 1990s),” he told The Car Connection. “For a number of years, all advanced design operations had to stop. A lot of our advanced work wasn’t focused on product.”

Under Cherry’s leadership, it found life. In America, his first vehicles were the 1997 Chevrolet Corvette and the Impala SS. But the real renaissance took

At the time, Ford’s J Mays said that the Cadillac Sixteen was the best piece of work to come out of General Motors since the days of Bill Mitchell in the 1960s. It was just one of Wayne Cherry’s designs.

The Cadillac Sixteen was more than just a concept. As a living and breathing prototype, it was likely the right 16-cylinder car at the wrong time that many thought GM would actually put into production. No doubt Wayne Cherry wished it would have.