How Pininfarina’s Chief Design Officer Bridges Heritage and Innovation Through Design Storytelling
In the world of automotive design, where surfaces meet storytelling and metal becomes emotion, few designers have mastered the art of narrative quite like Felix Kilbertus. As former Chief Design Officer at legendary Italian design house Pininfarina—celebrating 95 years in 2025—Kilbertus brings a rare combination of global perspective, technical mastery, and storytelling prowess that shapes how we experience mobility.
In this revealing episode of “Under the Hood: Automotive Storytelling,” Kilbertus shares his remarkable 20-year journey across some of the industry’s most iconic brands—from Renault and Nissan to Fiat, Rolls-Royce, and now Pininfarina. His insights illuminate a crucial truth: in automotive design, the story behind the shape is as important as the shape itself. For executives seeking to translate complex innovations into compelling narratives, this conversation offers a masterclass in the power of words, the importance of cultural intelligence, and the future of design storytelling.
From Childhood Wonder to Design Mastery: The Journey Begins
Kilbertus’s fascination with automotive design started before he could even speak. “I was always fascinated with cars before I could actually speak,” he reveals, describing his early captivation with the iconic Citroën DS. “It almost felt alive. It looked almost like a shark or something very aquatic, but it also becomes alive when it starts.”
This visceral connection to form and movement would become the foundation of his design philosophy. But his path wasn’t immediately clear. “You don’t necessarily know as a kid that there is a path that leads you towards car design,” he explains. “It took me until I was probably 15 or 16 to even encounter the idea that there are professional car designers.”
A pivotal moment came when a teacher shared an article about the Mercedes-Benz Design Center. “I was happy to have people that pointed me in the right direction,” Kilbertus reflects. This guidance led him to pursue transportation design, eventually landing at Renault Design under the legendary Patrick Le Quément.
Learning from Legends: Patrick Le Quément’s Influence
Working under Le Quément proved transformative. “Patrick is really an extraordinary character. He’s first of all an extremely cultured person, extremely deep thinker,” Kilbertus says. But Le Quément’s impact went beyond creative genius—he fundamentally transformed how design functions within automotive organizations.
“He was one of the very first people that really convinced the management to attach the Direction du Design Industriel directly to the boards and not through engineering,” Kilbertus explains. This structural change elevated design from a service function to a strategic discipline. “In many ways, it is a blueprint to this day of how a creative organization is run and interfaces within an organization.”
For automotive executives struggling to position design as a strategic asset rather than a styling department, this historical context offers valuable lessons. The positioning of design within organizational structures directly impacts its ability to influence innovation and market relevance.
Rolls-Royce and the Art of Designing for Tomorrow’s Luxury
Kilbertus’s tenure as Head of Exterior Design at Rolls-Royce from 2017 to 2023 represents one of the most significant chapters in his career. His work on the Phantom, Ghost, Cullinan Series 2, and the groundbreaking electric Spectre demonstrates how storytelling can guide design decisions that honor heritage while embracing radical innovation.
The Phantom Challenge: Respecting History While Moving Forward
When tasked with refreshing the iconic Phantom for its Series 2, Kilbertus faced the weight of automotive history. “You do feel a little nervous because you can’t mess it up,” he admits. “History wouldn’t be particularly kind to you.”
But customer research revealed something surprising: “The message from the customers was almost like, don’t mess with it, don’t change it.” Yet the design team identified opportunities for meaningful evolution, including the revolutionary disc wheels that allude to aerodynamic designs from the 1920s.
This approach—listening deeply to customers while maintaining design leadership—offers a blueprint for innovation in established luxury brands. The key is differentiating based on customer needs. For example, the team deliberately distinguished between Phantom and Phantom Extended: “The further east you go, the more likely it is that you have a Phantom Extended and you’re being driven, while the further west you go, the more likely it is that you have an owner driver.”
Understanding these cultural and regional differences allowed the design team to create variants that resonate with distinct customer segments—a lesson applicable across automotive segments.
Spectre: Electricity as Returning to Rolls-Royce’s Roots
Perhaps Kilbertus’s most significant contribution at Rolls-Royce was leading the design of Spectre, the brand’s first fully electric vehicle. Rather than treating electrification as a departure from heritage, the team uncovered a powerful origin story.
“Henry Royce made his first fortune with electric componentry,” Kilbertus reveals. “He produced electric motors for the cranes of Manchester in the late 1800s. He developed switches and control mechanisms.” Even the bayonet light bulb mechanism used in the UK is a Royce patent.
This historical connection liberated the design process. “We immediately felt liberated from the idea to differentiate it consciously from the petrol range. It really had to be Rolls-Royce, first and foremost.”
To communicate this transformation, the team found an unexpected analogy: Bob Dylan playing electric guitar for the first time at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. “It’s the same musician, the same talent, the same voice, but a new sound,” Kilbertus explains. “That sort of transformation helped us to really focus on how can we create that expression, how can we translate that into shapes and materials and forms.”
For automotive communicators and executives: This example illustrates how uncovering authentic heritage stories can transform how you position breakthrough innovations. Electrification isn’t abandoning tradition—it can be a return to foundational values when the right story is told.
The Power of Words: How Storytelling Shapes Design Decisions
Throughout the conversation, Kilbertus emphasizes a theme that aligns perfectly with The Storytelling Tribe’s philosophy: the transformative power of precise language in design.
Islands of Detail and Candlelight: Naming as Creative Direction
“Islands of Detail”: This internal term expressed the design philosophy of Rolls-Royce bodies as “essentially a shape, beautifully moving sculpture, and then details were added to it.” The metaphor of islands contrasting against “that sea of sheet metal that shines and flows and reflects” helped the entire team understand and execute the vision.The Candlelight Moment: When discussing the Cullinan’s rear lamps, a designer described a vertical element as “like a candle, like a candlestick within a lantern.” Kilbertus recalls: “Everyone’s like, yeah, of course. It became, at that moment, when people saw the shape and heard the idea of a candle, it was game over for any other proposal.”
These examples demonstrate what Kilbertus calls “the power of words.” “When you have a strong reason why that comes from storytelling, it transforms the way you see the world,” he explains.
Wittering Blue: When Color Names Tell Stories
Even color naming benefits from storytelling. Kilbertus describes Wittering Blue, “a beautiful baby blue color” named after “the color of the house where Henry Royce spent a lot of his summers.” The connection of color to story “becomes a lot more powerful.”
For marketing professionals and product teams, this insight is invaluable: descriptive names and evocative language aren’t superficial additions—they’re strategic tools that align teams and resonate with customers.
Design Across Cultures: Local Authenticity in a Global Industry
With experience spanning Austria, France, Japan, Italy, Germany, the UK, Kilbertus offers unique insights on balancing cultural specificity with global relevance.
“Culture is always about what humans do and what humans are all about,” he reflects. “It’s something very precious to have these differences.” But he observes an interesting dynamic: “When the world is not global, you don’t see your local culture as local. It’s just the culture.”
This globalization creates both challenges and opportunities. At Rolls-Royce, the team had to understand how different markets perceive luxury. In China, for instance, the Phantom Extended dominates, while Western markets prefer owner-driver configurations.
At Pininfarina, this cultural intelligence becomes even more critical. “If you think of Pininfarina, there’s a 95-year history that we celebrate next year, and almost half of this is outside Italy and outside Europe,” Kilbertus notes. The firm works across transportation, architecture, and product design in markets from Miami to Shanghai.
His approach? “The first rule that I would always have is curiosity and openness. The first thing is always look at what it is and try to see the best in it and then take the best and make it better.”
For global automotive executives: This mindset—embracing local cultural nuances while maintaining brand coherence—is essential for companies operating across diverse markets. Understanding that luxury means different things in different contexts allows for authentic regional customization without brand dilution.
The Evolution of Design: From Anonymous Craftsmen to Collaborative Teams
Kilbertus offers a fascinating perspective on how design storytelling itself must evolve. Citing Roland Barthes’s description of the Citroën DS as being like Gothic cathedrals—”shaped by anonymous people, by the unknown architects”—he notes that design wasn’t a story until relatively recently.
“We’ve witnessed now the hyper storytelling facilities of social media and TV,” he observes. “But I think we will need to rethink how we tell the story of design. I think it’s no longer the story of an individual because that’s simply not the way the design industry works anymore.”
The reality is collaborative: “You need half a dozen people to shape anything meaningful and all the support and all the context.” This includes not just the creative team but also “an R&D team and a corporate culture that can communicate, that can produce, that can sell, that can keep the product alive.”
“As we go forward, it would be interesting to see how the story about who designs things shifts a little bit, make it more realistic, more honest,” he suggests. “The story of the individual creator still sells…but I’m not sure whether it’s a true story anymore.”
This insight challenges both how companies position their design capabilities and how designers themselves frame their contributions—a shift from hero narratives to collaborative excellence stories.
Design, Business, and Leadership: Finding the Right Balance
Kilbertus strongly agrees with the need for design leaders to understand business. “Design is to capitalism what the Red Cross is to war,” he quotes provocatively. “Design is a very useful discipline. It does make things better. But of course, design can’t solve everything.”
He emphasizes that understanding business context is crucial: “You need to be efficient, you need to make meaningful things and you need to make them in meaningful ways. You can’t work against the constraints of production, against the constraints of human needs, environmental change, social sustainability.”
However, he makes an important distinction: “I think leadership absolutely has to” understand business, “but I don’t think everybody needs to have that sort of capability.” Design leadership bridges two realities: “Talking design to business people and then talking business with your design team.”
This nuanced view recognizes that different team members contribute differently. “Some individuals really need isolation and concentration and almost locking themselves away. Other creatives need the daily exchange.” The leader’s role is “to free these spaces to allow people to do what they do best.”
The AI Revolution: From Generators to Editors
When discussing artificial intelligence’s impact on design, Kilbertus first challenges the terminology itself: “I do have a bone to pick with the idea of AI because artificially it’s the easy part, the intelligence part is the tricky part.”
He contextualizes current AI tools within the broader digital revolution: “We’ve used clay models for almost 100 years. We’ve used digital tools for 30 years. But now with AI, we see once again another shift probably as dramatic as in the mid-90s.”
The fundamental change? “When I was a student, the biggest challenge was to fill a wall full of drawings…you spent most of your time on generating and very little of the time actually selecting and editing. Now that has completely changed.”
With generative AI, “it’s very easy to fill your wall.” This shift means “your capability of becoming an editor becomes much more important. You need to focus so much more on why you choose something, how you choose something, how you brief people in order to get the right choice.”
“I think in writing, editing is recognized for the importance it has,” he notes. “And I think in design, we now need to become better editors rather than just or only generators of ideas.”
Beyond generative design, Kilbertus anticipates AI will “revolutionize many other ways of doing things”—technical surfacing, convergence processes, and more. “We haven’t seen the full impact yet by any measure.”
Felix Kilbertus’s #1 Storytelling Advice
When asked for his number one storytelling advice, Kilbertus returns to his core themes:
“I think it’s about know your audience. Bridging the gap and thinking of the power of words and thinking of the power of simplicity. Be specific, be short, be clear about it and use fewer elements but make them really strong.”
He references the famous scene from Amadeus where the count tells Mozart, “There’s too many notes, Mozart.” The lesson? “You need to really keep your message simple, you need to have a key melody and you need to find that balance between something super elaborate, something super deep, something super fascinating, but you need to have your theme clear.”
Citing Kubrick’s films, he notes: “That theme is simple, deceptively simple, but it really unites an entire big idea. So keep it simple and don’t forget the power of words.”
The Road Ahead: Design as Applied Storytelling
Felix Kilbertus’s journey—from a child fascinated by the living sculpture of the Citroën DS to leading design at one of the world’s most legendary design houses—illustrates a fundamental truth about automotive innovation: great design is always about more than surfaces and shapes. It’s about understanding human desires, respecting cultural contexts, and finding the words that transform vision into shared understanding.
For automotive executives, technology leaders, and strategic communicators, Kilbertus offers a powerful framework: storytelling isn’t decoration applied after design decisions are made—it’s the tool that guides those decisions from the beginning. The right word at the right moment can unite teams, clarify vision, and help customers understand why an innovation matters.
As the industry navigates transformations in electrification, autonomous technology, and AI-assisted design processes, Kilbertus’s insights remind us that the most powerful technology remains the precisely chosen word that bridges the gap between creator and audience.
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Keywords: automotive design storytelling, Pininfarina, Rolls-Royce Spectre, luxury car design, Felix Kilbertus, design leadership, automotive innovation communication, electric vehicle design, cross-cultural design strategy, AI in automotive design