Ford Shuffles Designers Into New Roles, Closes Irvine Studio

Back in the fall of 2019, FoMoCo announced that Kemal Curic would become the new Lincoln Design Director, replacing David Woodhouse, who departed the brand to take a position at Nissan. Curic had plenty of experience with the luxury brand already, having previously served as Lincoln’s chief designer, too. However, Ford is now shaking up its design team in a number of ways, and that includes moving Curic to a totally new position, as well as replacing the longtime veteran with another familiar face.

According to Car Design News, Curic will be moving from Lincoln to a new role – global design director for Ford Performance. Curic is certainly no stranger to that sort of thing, however, as he helped style the exterior of the sixth-generation Ford Mustang and is an avid America muscle car fan, in general. In his new role, Curic will be responsible for helping to develop new versions of vehicles like the iconic pony car and the automaker’s Raptor lineup. Curic leaves behind quite the legacy at Lincoln, where it helped evolve the brand’s “Quiet Flight” design language.

Meanwhile, Curic will be replaced by Christine Cheng, who will now serve as the new Lincoln Design Director moving forward. She has roughly two decades of design experience herself, but just joined Ford back in early 2023 following time at its cross-town rival General Motors and Cadillac. Cheng previously helped develop the F-Series lineup, and will now shift her focus back to the luxury side of the business. In addition to these moves, Ford plans to shutter its Irvine studio and consolidate its design teams in Dearborn.

These are just the latest in a series of design team shakeups at The Blue Oval as of late, which began back in August of last year, when Todd Willing was appointed as Ford and Lincoln’s new head of design for the entire globe, replacing Anthony Lo. Just a couple of months later, Lo accepted the position of vice president of global design at Beijing Automotive Group Co., Ltd. (BAIC), a Chinese state-owned automobile manufacturer headquartered in Shunyi, Beijing.