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Ford design boss set to step down

One of the many cars J Mays lent his design skills to is the Ford Shelby GR1 Concept.

The 59-year-old, one of the last senior executives from the tumultuous Jacques Nasser era, started as Ford's vice president of design in 1997 after working with BMW, Audi and Volkswagen.

His design work shaped the 2014 Ford Fusion/Mondeo, the 2012 Ford Focus and the 2011 Fiesta. But he was also responsible for much of the styling of the 2008 Jaguar XF, 2010 Ford Mustang, the current F-150 and the 2005 Ford GT.

J ("just J, that's my name", he said at one launch in Detroit) Mays also led development of a concept cars including the Ford Interceptor, Fairlane, Shelby GR-1 and 427, Jaguar F-Type and the 2012 Lincoln MKZ Concept.

But his career was not without controversy. He was criticised for delivering the "bland" Ford Five Hundred and Freestyle but, in a 2012 interview with Automotive News, he acknowledged: "I don't want to push this onto somebody else".

"I don't think the Five Hundred or Freestyle was one of my brighter moments in Ford, but designing a car is not a solo effort and a lot of people have input on the kind of product they want," he said.

"I've been at the company 13 years and I've been through five CEOs. Some of those CEOs have had more conservative tastes than others. And thankfully the one we have now lets me swing for the fences." Mays was seen to redeem himself under current Ford CEO Alan Mulally, notably with the Ford Fusion/Mondeo and the Fiesta.

He will be replaced on January 1, 2014 by Moray Callum (54), the current design director for Ford in North America.

The writer is on Twitter: @cg_dowling

Neil Dowling
Contributing Journalist
GoAutoMedia Cars have been the corner stone to Neil’s passion, beginning at pre-school age, through school but then pushed sideways while he studied accounting. It was rekindled when he started contributing to magazines including Bushdriver and then when he started a motoring section in Perth’s The Western Mail. He was then appointed as a finance writer for the evening Daily News, supplemented by writing its motoring column. He moved to The Sunday Times as finance editor and after a nine-year term, finally drove back into motoring when in 1998 he was asked to rebrand and restyle the newspaper’s motoring section, expanding it over 12 years from a two-page section to a 36-page lift-out. In 2010 he was selected to join News Ltd’s national motoring group Carsguide and covered national and international events, launches, news conferences and Car of the Year awards until November 2014 when he moved into freelancing, working for GoAuto, The West Australian, Western 4WDriver magazine, Bauer Media and as an online content writer for one of Australia’s biggest car groups. He has involved himself in all aspects including motorsport where he has competed in everything from motocross to motorkhanas and rallies including Targa West and the ARC Forest Rally. He loves all facets of the car industry, from design, manufacture, testing, marketing and even business structures and believes cars are one of the few high-volume consumables to combine a very high degree of engineering enlivened with an even higher degree of emotion from its consumers.
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