Pinky Lai

Who is Pinky Lai?

Pinky Lai is an automotive designer, the first Chinese in the Car Design Profession. Currently still under contract with Porsche AG and in semi-retirement. He was Chief Designer responsible for the exterior designs of both Porsche Boxster 987 and 1st generation Cayman. He is also responsible for the Design of the complete model-line of 911 Carrera.

In 1972 he moved to Rome, where he later gained a BA in Industrial Design at the Istituto superiore per le industrie artistiche. When studying he saw an advertisement from Ford of Germany for a car designer and in 1978 he ended up receiving a two-year full scholarship on transportation design at the RCA Royal College of Art in London.

In the Spring of 1980, he was declared the Winner of the John Ogier Memorial Design Bursary of the Royal Society of Art.

After his graduation with a MA from RCA in 1980, he started working for Ford Werke in Cologne, Germany. In 1982/83 he went on a joint venture project to work in Ghia Studios and Mazda in Japan where he worked on a specialty car programm as a result of winning the internal competition. Overall he worked on the Sierra, Fiesta, Escort and Scorpio projects.