The rumor had reached me via friends that all staff at the Chrysler Pacifica Advanced Design in Carlsbad had been given severance packages on Friday March 7th 2008, victims of the down sizing of company assets and the drop in sales. Today March 8th it is confirmed via Automotive News that all Advanced Design will be conducted at their Auburn Hills Headquarters. This studio in effect had influenced their product design with successful vehicles such as the Dodge Challenger, Chrysler 300 and Chrysler Pacifica over recent years but as many people know, all sculptors and designers in California spend most of their time at the beach!

The sad part of this story is, California is one of the leaders in setting trends due to its diverse nature and for the studio to be moved to Detroit is a big blow to the staff and possibly future products. Today the need for a competitve edge is paramount and without this Californian studio it could well accelerate the final chapter in their rocky existence. Chrysler was one of the first to recognize the importance of California as a forward thinking and cultural melting pot, allowing it to cash in on the latest trends but recent years have seen a dramatic downturn in fortune resulting in a marriage with Mercedes Benz and most recently a divorce. The recent takeover by Cerberus could well see a piece mealing of the car company in years to come especially if profitability looks unlikely.

I’m sure the surviving studios of Ford and GM are monitoring these events with a bated breath, considering whether to consolidate themselves as the continual squeeze on product sales erode away their market share. Without sales profits are slim leaving little to invest in future products let alone a standalone studio but that frontier studio could well be the difference between success and failure, given the latitude to design.

Still, with the dust up in the air only time will tell whether this was a move of genius or a move of desperation, either way as I see it, it’s one less quality design facility in Southern California.