Henrik Fisker

Henrik Fisker (born 10 August 1963) is a Danish automotive designer and entrepreneur based in Los Angeles, California, US. He is best known as the founder of Fisker Automotive and Fisker Inc, and as a designer of luxury cars. After working at BMW, Ford, and Aston Martin, Fisker founded Fisker Automotive in 2007. The company failed to meet production deadlines despite significant federal and private investment. Fisker resigned in 2013. The New York Times described the company as the "Solyndra of the electric car industry" and a "debacle". He then became the CEO of Fisker Inc., which he co-founded with his wife in 2016; the company filed for bankruptcy in 2024.

Fisker was born in Allerød, Denmark. As a young boy he became interested in cars after seeing a Maserati Bora on the highway, and soon started sketching designs in notebooks. He graduated with a degree in transportation design from the Art Center College of Design in Vevey, Switzerland, in 1989.

In 1989, Fisker began working at BMW Technik, the company's advanced design studio in Munich. His first project he collaborated was the E1 electric concept car, designed by Mark Clarke. From 1992 to 1997, he refined the Z07 concept car, which would become the BMW Z8 roadster, produced from 1999 to 2003. The car combined design elements from the company's past with a modern look, paying homage to the BMW 507 (produced from 1956 to 1959).^{[citation needed]} Fisker also worked on the design of BMW's first SUV, a mid-size luxury crossover introduced in 1999, the X5.

From 1999 to 2001, Fisker was the president and chief executive officer of Designworks, a BMW industrial design studio headquartered in Newbury Park, California.

Fisker left BMW for the Ford Motor Company in 2001, where he served as design director at Aston Martin. He was in charge of the production design of the Aston Martin DB9 (in production from 2004 to 2016), bringing in elements from the history of Aston Martin cars. The DB9 was available as both a coupe and a convertible. Fisker also designed the Aston Martin V8 Vantage (in production from 2005 to 2018). It was named the coolest car of the year and the best sounding car of the year by Top Gear in 2005. The Vantage is the best selling Aston Martin of all time. The extent of Fisker's involvement in designing both the DB9 and V8 Vantage has been disputed, however, with former director of design at Aston Martin Ian Callum saying the two cars were largely designed under his watch before Fisker joined the company.

From September 2001 to August 2003, Fisker was creative director of Ingeni, Ford's London-based design and creativity center. In August 2003, he became the director of Ford's Global Advanced Design Studio in Irvine, California, where the Ford Shelby GR-1 was designed. In 2005, Fisker left Aston Martin and the Ford Motor Company.

In 2007, Tesla Motors hired Fisker to perform initial design work on the Tesla Model S electric sedan, which was introduced in 2012. That year, he also designed the body of the Artega GT two-door sports car, Artega Automobile's first model, which was produced between 2009 and 2012. It spawned the 2011 Artega SE, an electric sports car with an identical body.

In 2005, Fisker partnered with Bernhard Koehler to start a custom car firm, Fisker Coachbuild, based in Orange County, California. The company's first car was the Fisker Tramonto, a roadster based on the Mercedes-Benz SL 55 AMG. The company's second car was the Fisker Latigo CS, with a re-bodied BMW 645Ci coupe. 17 units of Tramonto were ever built in collaboration with coachbuilder Stola.