From this…to this

Miles Nürnberger has left his role as design director at Aston Martin to become head of design at Dacia. Felix Page asks him why he made the move

- Felix Page

It’s one thing designing a 1160bhp V12-powered hypercar that will only ever be sold in strictly limited numbers, and quite another to be responsible for the styling of what is now Europe’s best-selling car – especially when the former will cost around 280 times that of the latter. Never would the two be mentioned in the same sentence, let alone fettled by the same hands, surely?

Step forward, Miles Nürnberger, the well-traveled Brit who has just departed his leading role in Aston Martin’s design team – a position in which he oversaw the styling of the Valkyrie among other headline-hitting machines – to join… Dacia. As career moves go, it’s up there with Jeremy Clarkson becoming a farmer or George W Bush taking up painting – not what you’d expect, perhaps. But look past the ‘Aston design boss in shock move to Dacia’ headline, and you’ll see there’s mainstream-sector form dotted throughout Nürnberger’s storied past.

“I worked on the Citroën C3 Picasso, some of the early work for the DS brand before it launched, the concept of the C-Cactus,” he tells Autocar, four days after getting his feet under the table at his new office. “I’ve done lots of things before. I’ve spent time at Land Rover, Ford, Lincoln in the US – so I’ve worked with a spectrum of brands.”