Pratap Bose joins Mahindra as design head
Mahindra and Mahindra, India's second home-grown carmaker after Tata Motors has now hired its former design head, Pratap Bose. Bose will start at Mahindra from June 24 at the position of executive vice president and chief design officer. This comes after his resignation from Tata Motors in April this year.
This hire seems part of Mahindra's Rs 9,000 crore revamp of its operations. This will see the launch of nine new SUVs from the brand by 2026, including a 5-door Thar, a new Bolero, the seven-seater XUV700 and the new Scorpio. There will be two new EVs as well, and Bose is expected to lead the design direction for many of these SUVs that are still in early stages of development.
Mahindra recently announced it will set up a new design centre in the UK which it calls Mahindra Advanced Design Europe (M.A.D.E). The outfit will be based in the West Midlands and will be operational from July 2021. Bose is expected to lead this initiative and has been charged with the design of products across all of Mahindra's key business segments such as SUVs, EVs, light commercial vehicle products, last-mile mobility, large commercial vehicles, Peugeot Scooters, tractors and farm machines.
Bose is an alumnus of Royal College of Art, London and National Institute of Design, India and spent 14 years at Tata Motors. He led the teams that designed production models like the Safari, Altroz, Harrier, Nexon, Tigor, Tiago, Bolt and Zest. He is also credited with penning concepts like the Sierra, H5X, 45X, H2X, Racemo and Pixel. Tata Motors has appointed Martin Uhlarik as its new global design head since Bose's departure.
