International Automotive Design

Last updated

International Automotive Design
Company type Private
Industry Automotive design
Founded(1976 (1976))
Founder
  • John Shute
  • Yvonne Shute

International Automotive Design (IAD UK Ltd) was a British design company, based in West Sussex, England.

Contents

IAD UK Ltd was founded in 1976 by John and Yvonne Shute. Initially, work came in the form of design services for rail cars which then led to Automotive Body and Chassis Engineering. However, due to the increasing customers' requirements, it soon expanded to encompass everything from design/styling and engineering through to small-scale production. IAD UK Ltd had at its peak a large R&D facility in Worthing, West Sussex, UK, plus 5 overseas operations in the USA (California and Detroit), France (5 facilities), Spain and Germany (3 facilities) along with liaison offices in Korea, Japan and Russia. The US, German and Spanish offices having their own styling studios. It was the world's largest R&D consultancy, and worked in automotive, commercial vehicles and aerospace. The company was in competition with Italdesign, Pininfarina, Bertone. By the early 1990s, the company employed over 1400 people. The majority of the projects completed by IAD was never made public, keeping the high level of security that John Shute believed was the key to customers allowing IAD to be considered for future projects.

The company was awarded the Queen's Award for Export and Industry many times and ultimately John was appointed an OBE (Order of the British Empire) by Queen Elizabeth II for his endeavors on behalf of the British Motor industry.IAD Worthing Herald Article

IAD designed and developed many concept cars as showcases including the IAD Alien, IAD Hunter, IAD Interstate, IAD Arrival, IAD Royale, IAD Mini MPV, IAD Venus and the IAD Magia.

They specialized in car prototyping and engineering design. Mayflower Corp. purchased IAD after it went into receivership in the early 1990s with the Engineering, Design groups and facilities were sold to Daewoo Motors 1993.

The Mazda MX5 (Miata) was one of the projects IAD was involved in, developing exterior and interior style for the vehicle in the UK/ US (California), as well as building prototypes locally prior to volume production in 1989. Mazda came to IAD to replicate the "true" British sports car invoking the MG's success of handling, and even directed the chassis team to copy the exhaust note of early MGBs.

Personnel

Board Members

Divisional Directors

and others

Design Directors

Designers

. [2]

Projects

Some of the companies IAD worked for include:

References

  1. "Michael Ani". automotivedesignconference.com. Retrieved 11 January 2020.
  2. Raimey, Robin-lyn (20 May 1991), "INTERNATIONAL AUTOMOTIVE DESIGN", Automotive News, pp. PERSONNEL, Pg. 28, retrieved 7 March 2010