SHAPING THE FUTURE

John Anthony Sahs has 25+ years in the automotive industry as a car designer.  The last 10 years has been in team management and project leadership.  John have had the great opportunity to work with some of the best designers around the world in major OEM's such as Mercedes-Benz Advanced Design of Japan, Mercedes Benz Advanced Design Stuttgart, and as well Nissan Global Design, Atsugi, Japan.  His experience ranges from Advanced Design to Final Production in both exterior and interior. He has worked on several iconic projects such as, the Mercedes-Benz Maybach Show car interior that had debuted at the Tokyo Motor Show in 1997.  He also designed the Nissan GT-R Concept car interior for the 2001 Tokyo Motor Show.  His second show car with Nissan Exploratory group was the SERENITY show car in 2003 where he led the exterior development.  In 2005 He was the team leader/exterior designer of the 3rd Generation Nissan Cube that was sold globally around the world. John followed up with designing the interior of the DENKI-CUBE that had debuted at the New York Motor Show in 2008.  He was also instrumental in the advanced development of the 2nd Generation Nissan Rogue in 2010-2011.  

In 2012, he returned to California and was the Senior Creative Interior Design Manager at Nissan Design America in San Diego, overlooking both Nissan and Infiniti interior design developments in North America. In 2013 John was the Project Lead Designer of the Nissan Resonance show car that had won the "Eyes on Design" for best Concept Car at the 2013 North American International Auto Show. He had also led the design team that had won the "People's Choice " award in the 2014 LA Design Challenge. . As the Interior Design manager, he had led the interior design team that developed the interior of the 2016 TITAN truck, the interior of the Titian Warrior show truck in 2017, and as well the interior of the Nissan V-motion 2.0 show car that had won several awards at the 2017 North American International Auto Show in Detroit.

Currently John is the Chief Designer of Nissan Design Latin America in Sao Pualo, Brasil. John also keeps a strong connection with Design Schools across the United States, and Brasil. He has also taught at Art Center College of Design as a guest lecturer, and continues to nurture and guide the next generation of car designers.

photo by Laurent Nivalle