Masters of the Universe… whenever someone says that we usually think of the swaggering financiers personified by Wall Street bond trader Sherman McCoy who was satirised in Tom Wolfe’s 1987 novel Bonfire of the Vanities.
But the car industry has its own masters too. They’re not ruthless young money grabbers in designer suits recklessly chasing seven-figure bonuses, but they do deal in billions of dollars and their intelligence, perspicacity, judgement – and sometimes boldness – or lack of some or more of the above can make or break a line of cars, and even their companies.
They’re called product planners – a mysterious lot, little known and even less understood outside the industry. If you want proof, Google ‘top 10 automotive product planners’. ‘You will get,’ says Ti’s automotive-engineer-cum-writer David Twohig, ‘list after list… of designers. Not a single product planner and that says it all: this is a seriously unknown and undervalued profession. Designers get 70 per cent of the spotlight, and engineers 30 per cent, leaving nothing for the poor product planners.’
