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Pratap Bose quits as Tata Motors design head.

Martin Uhlarik, Head of Design, UK has taken over his role.


Link

That's a bummer because his designs are what is drawing crowds to the TaMo showrooms - curious, did he quit because he was overlooked for the MD's role?

Martin Uhlarik has a huge shoes to fill. Bose's decision came out of nowhere. He created an amazing change at Tata Motors and their monthly sales numbers speaks for itself. With Tata Motors also in hunt for new MD and Bose making his exit, the next few years will be very critical for the company. The current set of products can continue to pull the numbers for next couple of years beyond which they need Uhlarik to pull off something!

Here it is in the news:

Pratap Bose quits after 14 years. Headed to “greener pastures”

Exactly what I thought in the first place.
Was brilliant enough to be elevated to the MD's position. Any reason why he could not have been considered for the promotion?

If I were the HR of the company, I will have a tough time replacing such stalwarts. & not everyone can understand Tata's philosophy & culture. It's unlike a normal business unit.

Will be good to see if Tata can manage to keep up with the numbers they have achieved for themselves. Also, a good time to sell the shares? :p

Found him a tad overrated and highly egoistic, he almost felt like he's above the league of Batista Farrina, Giorgetto Guigiaro, Chris Bangle, Peter Schreyer etc whereas to me he won't even cut top 100.

All he did was chisel and sharpen the early 2000's design of Tata, which were done by Pininfarina, and personally I dont like those jutting tail-lights with a 4 inch kink below them, looks odd and too sharp, the Tata Altroz dashboard is a clean copy of the Elite i20.

Martin Uhlarik has work experience in Skoda, Nissan and SAIC prior to Tata, I trust him to bring in a true European look to Tata motors going forward. I think it's a step forward in the right direction for Tata, they should bring in the Europeans for everything henceforth. Can't wait to see the next generation of Tata cars.

Exactly same opinion.

Other than the Tiago as a whole, and the rear of Hexa and Harrier, nothing he could produce was up to my personal taste - but then, the design is subject to be subjective!

Although he gave some decent and elegant designs, but there is an entire team behind every implementation. If the right people are still seated in the studios with their equipment in hand, only getting someone from Europe will solve the issues. No doubt he was good, but better can be hired too!

They should get someone from Europe now, Europeans are really good in making elegant and timeless designs.

Official announcement:



Martin Uhlarik announced as the new Global Design Head of Tata Motors

No matter what some say about Pratap Bose, the fact is that he is the one who brought TATA cars back to life, design wise.

I think that Pratap Bose obviously wasn't the only person responsible for the change in Tata's design language. They have 3 design studios, one in India and the other two in UK and Italy. All new designs were collaborative efforts of all three design teams. For example, the H5X and the HBX concepts were designed by the Italy design team. The newly appointed design head, Martin Uhlarik, too has been heading the UK design studio from 5 years now. High hopes from him and his team.

The gentleman has some sort of charisma, halo about him. His eccentric approach on social media, yet his very active presence on it made him a favourite of masses. His interesting tastes like scale model plane kits and collections - won (and will continue to win) him fans (me included) that not everyone gets.

His contribution to the turn around at TaMo over the last 1.5 decade definitely has been invaluable. This change I was actually expecting since a couple of years to be honest. In design - its always beneficial for the designer as well as the organization to have a churn. Otherwise things start looking alike after a while since there is no change of scenery for anyone. This means - if the designs are not to the liking of some people (and its always the case) - all the cars start to appear not likable for that set of people. Thus - losing target customers for a while! I for example - Don't like the rear of the 2020 Nexon, and the Harrier at all. It was becoming a trend too.

Such a reset is great for both. And if anyone thinks that it was all just Pratap Bose - then that is wrong too. We can safely assume that the team on the ground that remains under new leadership has all the magic that is needed to remain on this improved path recently picked by TaMo. Let's see which company now has the good fortune of working with this exciting design personality!

What's with the MD position? I thought this is one with Business acumen and leaning towards strategy and operations. How does a star from a functional group (like design, HR, engineering) can be a natural fit? Am I old school here?

His designs - I liked the facelift versions of Tiago, Nexon and Harrier. Should I take that he/the design team didn't get it right the first time?

Tata: While Individual is important but this organisation will outlive the 'legends' it has created/seen.

Hope Martin will take the design of Tata motors to next level. We may get some clean European designs from tata motors

An organization is much more than just one or two posterboys. There would be full fledged transition process in place and legacy will be carried on. After all how many of us work in an organization for more than 14 years? Let us chill and move on.