Filling in for Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne, who was called away to ink a deal creating a joint venture to produce vehicles in Russia, chief design officer and Dodge brand CEO Ralph Gilles gave a speech in Chicago today in which he said that the Chrysler brand should strive to emulate that bastion of slick and innovative design, Apple. He also noted that his hero is Apple CEO Steve Jobs.

Gilles said that while Chrysler has a storied history of innovation -- the badge pretty much invented both the minivan and the modern SUV -- many of its recent offerings have been either "me too" vehicles, which look like everything else, or models that received a lot of design attention but became one-hit wonders due to lack of follow-through.

Now, designwise, Gilles is the man. He created the Chrysler 300, which, while it's starting to show its years, was a pretty badass, head-turning car when it debuted. The man knows of what he speaks. The one thing I will question, though, is the following quote from the Automotive News source article:

Gilles talked of winning over a new generation of “millennial” customers, people more interested in social networking than how a car looks. Gilles said his design studios are now filled with designers in their early 20s who “understand the market better than I could ever hope to.”

I heard a lot of this at the L.A. Auto Show -- that somehow the millennial generation (younger kids who were born into a connected world) prefer social networking and connectivity at the expense of stylish sheet metal. I just don't understand why it's thought of as a zero-sum game; as Ford has demonstrated of late, most recently with the Fiesta, putting a premium on technology does not mean you need to put that technology in a bland car. And while some of the rides popular with younger buyers are flat-out ugly to me -- hot boxes like the Scion xB come to mind -- that doesn't mean they're a-stylistic. Theirs is simply a distinct style that doesn't appeal to me. If he's really going to emulate Apple, Gilles needs to realize that connectivity and style need not only to go hand-in-hand, but do so in a way that seems both seamless and intuitive.