In the near future, the Lada brand will have a new chief designer. Frenchman Jean-Philippe Salard, who held the position of vice president of design at AvtoVAZ for the past year and a half, has been fired, the website tlt.ru reports. Note that the manufacturer has not yet officially announced such a personnel decision.
However, since mid-May, unofficial information has been constantly appearing that top managers of the Renault Group structure, with which AVTOVAZ is currently not in contact, are leaving the Russian company. The first to leave the post immediately after the political events of late February was Nicolas Maure, the former president of AVTOVAZ. The departure of designer Salar was therefore only a matter of time.
Prior to AvtoVAZ, Jean-Philippe Salar was responsible for the development of the Dacia design – under his leadership the new Duster, the third generation Logan / Sandero and the Arkana crossover for Russia were created. Salar took over the design of the Lada brand on January 1, 2021, replacing Englishman Steve Mattin in this area, who has completely transformed the model range of the domestic brand since 2013.
Salar didn’t really have time to prove himself. Last October he spoke about plans according to the new generation Niva, whose appearance was to be born in collaboration with former Aston Martin designer Miles Nuremberger, but after a few months, these plans were completely devoid of any likelihood of execution. Now, according to some reports, Valery Frolov has been appointed acting chief designer of the Lada brand.
Since the end of May, AVTOVAZ has had a rotation of management personnel. Notably, the vice-governor of Saint Petersburg, Maxim Sokolov, became president. Evgeny Shmelev returned to AvtoVAZ to the post of vice president of engineering, who worked at the company until mid-2010.
- And the head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Denis Manturov, headed the board of directors.
- Behind the Wheel” can now be seen on RuTube.