Meeting Peter Schreyer - the man behind Kia's tiger nose grille

Although Schreyer gained responsibility for Hyundai design as recently as 2013, becoming the first foreign presidential-level employee in the group, he and Chung soon discussed the design characters of both brands. “The snowflake and water drop thing was very early,” says Schreyer of the symbolic ideas that define Kia’s and Hyundai’s respective design languages. “We still argue today about who said it first,” he laughs. “I’m convinced that it was his idea to describe the two companies in this way. This guided me and gave me a background to use until today. It’s part of our design philosophy and also part of our differentiation. The snow crystal is architectural and clear, while what Hyundai has is inspired by nature; water can appear in very different ways.”

Schreyer played no small part in building the brands of both Audi and Volkswagen in his previous life, as Kia was keen to make clear when he was hired. A press release at the time listed pretty much every Audi and VW in which he had a hand, his impressive tally including the reborn Volkswagen VW Beetle, the brilliant but inexplicably unrealised Microbus concept, Volkswagen Golfs Mk4 and Mk5, assorted Volkswagen Passats, the landmark Audi TT and the A2, Audi A3, Audi A4, Audi A6 and Audi A8. Schreyer’s recruitment was an undoubted coup and in time a source of uncharacteristically aired regret for then VW Group boss Ferdinand Piech, who in 2012 said: “We should not have let him go.”

There was plenty to do before  Piech’s rueful moment, however. “It was always my goal to really create an identity, and the tiger nose grille is a signature you can recognise on cars everywhere,” says Schreyer of Kia’s horizontal, doubly indented air intake. “Kia was a very neutral brand; you didn’t recognise them on the street.” So the task in hand was relatively clear.

What came next was the firstgeneration Kia Cee’d, the Golfchallenging hatch largely designed at the brand’s Frankfurt studio and arriving before Schreyer could have much impact on it. While the Cee’d wasn’t especially distinctive, it was entirely contemporary and pretty capable and it suited European tastes, as intended. There was room for improvement, however.

“When I first started, I was sure I could really make a change and do some good stuff,” says Schreyer. “But if you look at where Kia is today, at the time I wouldn’t have dreamt of making such a difference. I knew I was capable of doing some good cars, but it depends a lot on the atmosphere and how you get along with people.”

Schreyer is clearly enjoying his time in South Korea and is now responsible not only for Kia’s design but also for that of Hyundai and Genesis, which is “a new brand and a fantastic project – very exciting”. Feeding the inspiration necessary for the task is Schreyer’s obvious love of all things Korean.

“There’s a very strong tradition,” he explains, “and then there is the modern life, from K-pop to electronics and everything; it’s quite progressive. I go when I can. I know a few people in art and architecture. I think it’s important to have an exchange with this, and not only at work. I’ve had a lot of good experiences, I’ve met a lot of people, I’ve been to a lot of places, I’ve got a new perspective.”

So is there a Korean cultural influence in Kias? “I think so,” he says. “People say our cars look very European. They do but they don’t, although it’s hard to nail it down to a detail. But this is where there’s a difference between us and the others.” And it’s a difference that has helped to power Kia into the top 10 of global car makers.

Schreyer has overseen the debut of multiple widely admired production cars, from the Soul to the Sportage to the Optima, as well as numerous concepts, several of them best-of-shows. Did he encounter resistance from Kia’s established designers when he arrived? “In general they were and are very open; they’re more ‘It went well’,” he says of teams based in Korea, Germany, the US and Japan. What does he tell a designer a Kia should be? “Like a snow crystal,” he says with a laugh. “It’s important to understand the brand. It’s a youthful challenger. I always talk about the simplicity of the straight line as a design philosophy. There is no straight line on a car, but it’s more about the cleanness and simplicity – not overworked.”

Several Kias nevertheless have a distinguishing design detail, such as the Optima’s rear pillars, or the previous Kia Sportage’s chrome lower window line. Is Schreyer keen to see a distinctive feature on every Kia? “We are trying,” he admits. “The solution on the Optima is unique. But that’s also the difficult bit because if you do it on every car, you have an inflation of that kind of thing. Still, we’re trying to do a few things that are atypical, like the little detail we do on most of our cars at the top of the windscreen.”

To illustrate, he sketches an indent in the upper edge of a screen. “I was sitting in a restaurant the other day in Seoul and it was a bit above the street. I saw cars coming by and could just see the windscreens and I could tell which were the Kias,” he says.