Chrysler Engineer Francois Castaing Has Died,1945-2023

Francois Castaing, who engineered the Dodge Viper, helped take Jeep from a niche off-road brand to a major market presence, and helped lead Chrysler during what was its last great renaissance in the 1990s, has passed away at the age of 78.

Born in wartime France in the bustling port city of Versailles, Castaing would have an influence on many race teams and production vehicles over a prolific career that spanned more than 30 years.

While still attending engineering college in Paris, he worked for Amedee Gordini’s race team, diving right into the engine from the team’s Le Mans effort. After a stint in the military Castaing returned, by which time the team had been absorbed by Renault. They named him Technical Director and won Le Mans in the first attempt of which Castaing was a part, then entered Formula 1.

From there he went to AMC, American Motors, Renault’s partner in the U.S. As vp of product engineering there he produced the downsized Jeep Cherokee, the first of many Jeeps that would prove to be the bread and butter of AMC and, later, Chrysler. His work at Jeep was a major part of the rise of the SUV in American markets and around the world, a global shift of which we are still in the midst.

When Chrysler took over Jeep and AMC, Castaing lead development of the LH-platform cars, sending them to market in record time through the use of simultaneous engineering, where teams worked on their parts of the cars at the same time other teams worked on theirs. Production went from 50 months in the old system to 39 months in his. He further reorganized Chrysler’s engineers into platform teams, where everyone worked on a particular platform and saw it through to production.

Along the way, Castaing was instrumental in creating the fabulous Dodge Viper, a sports/muscle car conceived by Bob Lutz and designed by Tom Gale in what would be the glory days of Chrysler in America. In that era, million-dollar Chrysler and Jeep concept cars seemed to adorn every major car show all over the world.

Castaing retired in 2000, serving on many boards of directors, as well as being elected a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering and a fellow of the Society of Automotive Engineers. He served on boards as diverse as the Detroit Science Center and Reynard Motorsport. He was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame in 2010.

Au revoir, Monsieur.