Ed Welburn has been with General Motors for over 40 years. In that time he has worked his way up from an associate designer all the way to his current position as Vice President of Global Design, where he now manages the design of every GM production and concept vehicle the world over. If it sounds like a big, important job – that’s because it is. In fact, Welburn is just the sixth design leader in the history of General Motors.  

During Welburn’s tenure as VP of Global Design, he’s earned accolades for big design hits like the 5^th Gen Camaro and Chevy Volt (…don’t laugh, the Volt won tons of awards for its design). Now, in this video from Chevrolet’s YouTube Channel, Welburn is discussing what will no doubt be one of the defining achievements of his career as a designer – the new C7 Corvette Stingray.

“When I think about Corvette, I think about this world class athlete,” says Welburn. “And with C7, it’s like that athlete has gone back to the gym. It’s been lifting weights, it’s been getting that muscle tone, and taking weight off. The result is this very fit, very toned, and very aggressive vehicle.”

Overall we’d tend to agree with Welburn’s assessment of the C7, and we really like all the “cutting the fat” rhetoric. Let’s hope that the design trend focusing on lighter and more agile that has been started with the C7 gets carried over into all of GM’s other performance name plates.