Portrait photograph of Alex Innes.

People

Alex Innes

Former Rolls-Royce Head of Coachbuild Design; Design Lead at BMW ALPINA

Oracle Time

The record

Automotive designer who joined Rolls-Royce from Coventry University around 2008, led Phantom Gallery artist commissions as a Bespoke Designer, and as Head of Coachbuild Design fronted Boat Tail and Droptail. In 2024 he left Goodwood for BMW ALPINA, where Car Design News named him design lead in May 2026.

Rolls-Royce approached Innes while he was still on Coventry University's automotive design course. After graduation he joined the Goodwood studio as a designer — his first job — around 2008, as the marque moved toward more emotive cars. He told Tempus that the Wraith was the first project he worked on. Later interviews record a path from designer to lead designer before the Coachbuild appointment.

At Rolls-Royce, Alex Innes worked as a Bespoke Designer and Creative Lead Designer of the Phantom Gallery artist commissions. The 2017 press kit records his collaboration with silversmith Richard Fox on Astrum, a Gallery concept for the New Phantom, and his selection of product designer Thorsten Franck for Digital Soul. He invited artists and master artisans to interpret the space behind the fascia glass.

By the Boat Tail launch in 2021, Innes was Head of Coachbuild Design. Rolls-Royce identifies him with the three-client Boat Tail programme and as Head of Coachbuild Design in its Droptail material; the register credits him as design lead for both programmes. He told A Collected Man that he reviewed full-size clay models with the patrons and that the first car's Pantheon grille was deconstructed so bonnet colour could spill onto it.

The 2023 Droptail release quotes him on the first modern Rolls-Royce roadster and the first significant reshape of the Pantheon grille, whose vanes were kinked into a temple-brow overhang. For La Rose Noire he named the Black Baccara rose as the motif; for Arcadia Droptail in 2024 he wrote of a commission kept faithful to a 2019 sketch.

In 2024 he left Coachbuild. A May 2026 LinkedIn post said he had quietly stepped away from designing coachbuilt Rolls-Royces and had joined Maximilian Missoni's team to guide ALPINA under BMW Group ownership. Car Design News listed him as Alpina design lead at the May 2026 Vision BMW ALPINA preview. As of August 2026 he remains in that post.

Commission-led design

Innes described Coachbuild as a way to work directly with commissioning patrons beyond the normal constraints of Bespoke. Rolls-Royce presented Boat Tail as three cars with a shared body style and individual client narratives.

Art within the fascia

For the Phantom Gallery, Innes invited artists and master artisans to create works integrated behind the fascia glass. The Astrum concept joined jewellery-scale silversmithing to the car's interior architecture.

Deconstructed Pantheon grille

On Boat Tail, Innes said the Pantheon grille left its applique role and became part of the body, so bonnet colour could spill onto the polished surfaces. Rolls-Royce presented that treatment as a Coachbuild freedom unavailable on series cars.

The stations

  1. 2008–2017Rolls-Royce Motor CarsDesigner, later Bespoke Designer and Lead Designer
  2. 2017–2024Rolls-Royce Motor CarsHead of Coachbuild Design
  3. 2024–BMW ALPINADesign Lead

The house

Rolls-Royce

Credited through Rolls-Royce Motor Cars.

In the register

3 files carry this name

The files above are the register's own record of this name. The people index holds everyone the register credits.

In their words

“Coachbuild provides freedom to move beyond the usual constraints.”

Alex Innes · Rolls-Royce Motor Cars press release, 2021