interview with Henrik Fisker
The world of the car design in these modern times is full of genial and visionary designers. We had the pleasure to interview one of them: Henrik Fisker. A little bit about Henrik, for who doesn’t know him. Henrik was born the 10th of August 1963. When he finished the high school, he moved to California to follow his childhood dream: become a car designer. He studied at The Art Center College of Design, in downtown Los Angeles, one of the most famous design schools of US. Henrik got his degree in 1989, and then he moved to Munich, Germany, to working for BMW Technik Gmbh inside their advanced design department. From 1992 to 1997, Henrik designed the Z07 concept car, which was showcased at the 1997 Tokyo Motor Show, and the exterior of the production BMW Z8 roadster. Starting in January 2000, Henrik was the president and chief executive officer of DesignworksUSA, a BMW-subsidiary industrial design firm headquartered in Newbury Park, California, with a European office in Munich, Germany. Henrik joined the Ford Motor Company in 2001, where he served as design director for Aston Martin. From September 2001 to August 2003, he was creative director of Ingeni, Ford’s London-based design and creativity center. In August 2003, Henrik became the director of Ford’s Global Advanced Design Studio (CAPC) in Irvine, California. He has also served as a member of the board of directors at Aston Martin. In 2004, Henrik left Ford to team up with Bernhard Koehler to start a new luxury car company, Henrik Coachbuild, based in Southern California. The company built and sold tailor-made cars based on production platforms. Fisker Coachbuild and Quantum Technologies teamed up to form Fisker Automotive; from this platform Henrik could create his car designs and produce them under his own name. The first car to be produced by Fisker Automotive was the Fisker Karma, a hybrid luxury car debuted in January 2008 at the North American International Auto Show. Fisker Karma production was launched in November 2011. Fisker performed initial design on the electric car Tesla Model S, and designed the body of the Artega GT internal combustion sports car, which in 2011 spawned an electric version with an identical body. In March 2013, Henrik resigned from Fisker Automotive. In the meantime he set up the HF Design & Technology: a designer could never stop his creativity! His last 2 products are the Viking, a concept motorbike, and the Galpin Rocket (based on the 2015 Ford Mustang). Due to the fact that we are true mustang addicted, we decided to focus our questions on the Galpin Rocket… 
FS: Good Morning Henrik, thank you for the time you are dedicating to us today. HF: Hello to you Fabrizio and to all the follower of mustangmania.it FS: Please introduce yourself to our guys HF: I’m originally from Denmark, but I am now living in California, USA. I’m a car designer and automotive entrepreneur, I started working for BMW in 1989, where among other cars, I designed the BMW Z8. In 2000 I started working for Ford Motor Company and Aston Martin (Ford owned Aston Martin at the time). I ran Ford’s global advanced design studio where among other cars, the Ford GR1 was made. At Aston Martin, I designed the DB9 and the V8 Vantage. In 2005 I ventured out on my own, creating specialty Coachbuild cars, such as the Fisker Tramonto and Latigo. In 2007 I founded Fisker Automotive, where I designed and launched the world’s first premium plug-in hybrid the Fisker Karma. In 2014 I designed the Rocket, based on the 2015 Ford Mustang, together with the world’s largest Ford dealer, Galpin. FS: when,where, Why your passion for cars started? HF: I always played with cars as a child; I grew up in the back of my Dad’s Saab 95, and could recognize every car on the road. FS: Which was the first Car you felt in love with? HF: Maserati Bora FS: When you decided to become a Car designer? HF: I my father took me to the movies, where we saw the original “gone in 60 seconds” that featured a yellow Ford Mustang, and I really wanted to design cars after that. FS: After many different cars, why you decided to work with Galpin on a mustang? HF: I have known Beau Boeckmann for many years, as we always met during my time at Ford and Aston Martin. I always dreamt of designing a Mustang, who better team up with than Beau, who owns and runs the world largest Ford dealership, and Beau loves specialty cars and doing things for the customer that no one else, can do. FS: How much difficult it was to develop? HF: It’s always hard to develop a car, but in this case, starting with the brand new 2015 Mustang made it easier, as it is such a great car with great proportions to start with. The difficult part of the development, is designing the body panels to fit exactly on the original fixing points, while making the new design really stand out. I did not want the Rocket to look like it had just received some new bumpers, it should look like a totally new extreme super mustang, the ultimate muscle car with a body in carbon fiber. FS: How many prototypes you made before the final car? HF: Due to my back ground in the OEM car business, I used a unique development process, where we only needed to create 1 prototype, although, we quickly build the first production car, so we had two cars for suspension development and testing. FS: Which is your favorite part of the Galpin Rocket (ex: front grille, side,etc.)? HF: My favorite part is the hood with the two large air intakes and the wide rear fenders that screams “Muscle”!!! FS: What about the color: Do you prefer it black or grey? HF: Grey really shows the shape, but you will see another exciting color shortly! FS: Which was the most difficult part to build of the car? HF: The most difficult part of the car was to create the very complicated carbon fiber rear tail lamp covers: I wanted the tail lights to look like super thin blades, to emphasize the typical 3 bar Mustang tail lamps in a super modern way. The covers have to be perfectly wrapping around the existing tail lamps. 
FS: let’s speak about the man behind the legend: We will ask you some personal questions. Are you confortable with that? HF: Yes. Please start! FS: Which is your Favorite car ever? HF: The Jaguar E Type V12 roadster FS: Which is your daily driver? HF: Fisker Karma and soon the Rocket FS: are you a good chef? HF: Yes, I grill some amazing steaks & make some great Martini’s…shaken not stirred.. FS: Ok, we trust you. But we maybe need to verify that! please share with us one of your bad habits HF: I drive too fast FS: which kind of boss are you at work? HF: I believe in finding the best in people, motivating people and getting them excited about what we create. FS: Have you any other mustang-based coming up projects? HF: Yes, I’m working on another version of the Rocket right now! It will be released later this year. FS: Thanks a lot for your time Heinrik. HF: Thank you too guys. In Stang we trust. Goodbye! Pictures: Courtesy of Henrik Fisker, Galpin Motorsport We leave you with the link to the Facebook page of Henrik Fisker
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