Interview

Max Missoni

Design Director, Polestar

For most automotive designers, taking their CEO through a design review can be a fraught process. The auto industry is mostly run by accountants and engineers, number crunchers who rely on systems and processes to produce something that sells on emotion. Polestar design director Max Missoni has a slightly different challenge, however: His boss, Polestar CEO Thomas Ingenlath, is himself a designer.

When Ingenlath left Volkswagen to become head of Volvo design in 2012, he brought with him to Sweden the Austrian-born Missoni, who’d worked for the German automaker since graduating from London’s Royal College of Art in 2002. Missoni was made vice president of exterior design for Volvo in 2014, and in 2018 he became Polestar’s design director after Ingenlath was made CEO of the premium electric vehicle brand.

Missoni has been involved with Polestar since the beginning. The concept coupe he drew became the