Geoffrey Leonard Matthews (widely known as Geoff Matthews) (September 1946 – 24 January 2015) was an English car designer who designed cars for manufacturers, including

Chrysler Stellantis North America (officially FCA US and formerly Chrysler ()) is one of the " Big Three" automobile manufacturers in the United States, headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan. It is the American subsidiary of the multinational automoti ...

Talbot Talbot was an automobile marque introduced in 1902 by English-French company Clément-Talbot. The founders, Charles Chetwynd-Talbot, 20th Earl of Shrewsbury and Adolphe Clément-Bayard, reduced their financial interests in their Clément-Talbot ...

and

Citroën Citroën () is a French automobile brand. The "Automobiles Citroën" manufacturing company was founded in March 1919 by André Citroën. Citroën is owned by Stellantis since 2021 and previously was part of the PSA Group after Peugeot acquired ...

Early life

Matthews was born to Joan, who had conceived him with Charlie Mann, a Canadian serviceman based in England while awaiting return to his home country at the end of World War II. Unwilling to raise a child who would be stigmatised as illegitimate, and with Mann now gone, Joan arranged for Matthews to be adopted; he grew up in a family of farm labourers that picked

hops Hops are the flowers (also called seed cones or strobiles) of the hop plant ''Humulus lupulus'', a member of the Cannabaceae family of flowering plants. They are used primarily as a bittering, flavouring, and stability agent in beer, to whi ...

for a living. He won a place at

grammar school A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching Latin, but more recently an academically oriented secondary school ...

, then went on to study car design at the

Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It offe ...

Notable achievements

Matthews worked on the exterior design of numerous vehicles, including: the Chrysler Alpine of 1976 (aka Simca 1308),

Chrysler Sunbeam The Chrysler Sunbeam is a small supermini three-door hatchback manufactured by Chrysler Europe at the former Rootes Group factory in Linwood in Scotland, from 1977-81. The Sunbeam's development was funded by a UK Government grant with the aim o ...

Talbot Tagora The Talbot Tagora is an executive car developed by Chrysler Europe and produced by Peugeot Société Anonyme (PSA). The Tagora was marketed under the Talbot marque after PSA took over Chrysler's European operations in 1979. PSA presented the f ...

Matra Rancho The Matra Rancho is a leisure activity vehicle created by the French engineering group Matra, in cooperation with the automaker Simca, to capitalize on the off-road trend started by the Range Rover. The Rancho provided an "off-road look" at a lower ...

and the car that would become the

Renault Espace The Renault Espace is a five-door car manufactured by the French carmaker Renault since 1984 for five generations. It is classified as a large MPV/minivan within the M-segment. The first three generations of the Espace were amongst the first co ...

. During the 1980s Matthews moved to France where he was promoted to Chief Exterior Designer at

, where he oversaw the development of the exterior designs for production cars, refreshes and concepts. This involved working on the Citroën AX, BX, series 2 CX as well as XM. During his time at Citroën, Matthews also spearheaded the EOLE project, which was displayed at the 1986 Geneva Motor Show, and pioneered developments in aerodynamics and design.

Views on car design

In an interview in 1990 by Gavin Green for ''Car'' magazine, Matthews was quoted as saying, "There is less room for visionary individuals than there used to be: less room for the very people who gave us the car industry in the first place. The great old men of the car industry – the ones with the vision and power to get things done – have gone. The

Ferdinand Porsche Ferdinand Porsche (3 September 1875 – 30 January 1951) was an Austrian-German automotive engineer and founder of the Porsche AG. He is best known for creating the first gasoline–electric hybrid vehicle (Lohner–Porsche), the Volkswag ...

Enzo Ferrari Enzo Anselmo Giuseppe Maria Ferrari (; 20 February 1898 – 14 August 1988) was an Italians, Italian motor racing driver and entrepreneur, the founder of the Scuderia Ferrari Grand Prix motor racing team, and subsequently of the Ferrari ...

William Lyons Sir William Lyons"Sir William Lyons – The Official Biography" by Philip Porter & Paul Skilleter, Haynes Publishing (4 September 1901 – 8 February 1985), known as "Mr. Jaguar", was with fellow motorcycle enthusiast William Walmsley, the co ...

es,

Henry Royce Sir Frederick Henry Royce, 1st Baronet, (27 March 1863 – 22 April 1933) was an English engineer famous for his designs of car and aeroplane engines with a reputation for reliability and longevity. With Charles Rolls (1877–1910) and Claude ...

s. Those men stamped their personalities on their cars."

Later career

Following his time at Citroën, Matthews took up key positions in a number of companies including; Styling International (a subsidiary of Hawtal Whiting Design), MGA Developments, Geoff Matthews Design, Facel Vega Motors,

Connaught Motor Company Connaught Motor Company was a manufacturer of high-performance hybrid technology cars and one of the first companies in the world to use this technology. Starting as a pioneer in lightweight technologies and power electronics, the company was re ...

.UK Director Company Check https://companycheck.co.uk/director/904673664/MR-GEOFFREY-LEONARD-MATTHEWS/companies Matthews also took up roles within the Automotive Design Courses at

Coventry Coventry ( or ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. It is on the River Sherbourne. Coventry has been a large settlement for centuries, although it was not founded and given its ...

and

Swansea University , former_names=University College of Swansea, University of Wales Swansea , motto= cy, Gweddw crefft heb ei dawn , mottoeng="Technical skill is bereft without culture" , established=1920 – University College of Swansea 1996 – University of Wa ...

. He was the subject of a BBC documentary, ''This Was My Dad - The Rise & Fall of Geoffrey Matthews''.

Early life

Notable achievements

Views on car design

Later career

References

Further reading