What Jaguar Land Rover’s head designer did next

We’ve spoken previously about former JLR creative head Gerry McGovern’s collab with historic British motorcycle brand Norton, and its very Jaguar style reinvention.

When we met McGovern at the brand relaunch last year it seemed, perhaps, a marriage of convenience, given JLR and Norton are neighbours and their respective Indian owners are seemingly share links behind the scenes. Leveraging his signature blend of modern British design – and his profile – to help promote Norton’s rebirth to an audience beyond hardcore bikers made sense, even if McGovern admitted to us he doesn’t actually ride motorcycles himself.

Regardless, he and Norton’s in-house designer Simon Skinner seemingly share a vision for the brand’s rebirth and, however much input he actually had on the bikes, it did the job of attracting wider attention.

Well, a lot has happened since then and McGovern’s much talked about departure from JLR has since been formalised. His relationship with Norton now, perhaps, progressing from mere flirtation to going steady. Certainly, you can see common elements in the Jaguar Type 01 he was involved with before leaving JLR and the Norton Manx R that launched the bike brand’s rebirth to similar noise and attention. And, again, in the new 450 Urban making its debut at Milan’s EICMA show this week, McGovern busy giving interviews as a spokesperson for the bike’s very distinctive looks.

The one question we’d have asked him if we were there being “have you got your bike licence, yet?” 

​Read more on the Norton Urban 450 on Autotrader’s bikes page