Royden Axe was born in Scunthorpe in 1937 and began his career at the Rootes Group in 1959 on a three-week apprenticeship, staying until 1976. He rose to chief stylist and then Design Director at 29. After Rootes became part of Chrysler Europe with Simca in 1966, he led the styling for almost all the Chrysler, Rootes and Simca cars of the early to mid-1970s, including the Hillman Avenger and the Simca 1308 and Horizon, which won European Car of the Year in 1976 and 1978.
After Chrysler Europe collapsed in 1977 he went to Detroit to head Chrysler’s US styling studios, working on the first Chrysler minivans and the 1981-83 Imperial. In 1982 he returned to Britain as styling director at British Leyland, replacing David Bache, and built a new studio at Canley, Coventry. It produced Project XX, the Rover 800, and the MG EX-E concept.
Axe retired from Rover at 55. In 1991 he became head of the Warwick design consultancy Design Research Associates, which came from a management buyout of Rover’s design studio, and which Arup bought in 1999. He moved to Florida and died in 2010. His autobiography is A Life in Style.
