Heave without harshness
He told Motor Trend that, in the heave motion, a car need not be uncomfortable to handle, and that the DB11 was the start of that characteristic at Aston Martin.
People
Matt Becker
Aston Martin chief engineer, 2015–21; JLR Vehicle Engineering Director (confirmed March 2026)
The record
Vehicle engineer who spent 26 years at Lotus and seven at Aston Martin as Chief Engineer, Vehicle Attribute Engineering. Auto Express reported that his Aston role oversaw the DBX, Vantage and DB11 range. Autocar gave him the 2021 Mundy Award. Jaguar identified him as JLR Vehicle Engineering Director on 31 March 2026.
Matt Becker is the son of Roger Becker, Lotus’s former director of vehicle engineering. He joined Lotus as an apprentice in 1988, aged 16, on the same day as Gavan Kershaw and James Key. Motor Trend records three years in the dyno room and junior-engineer work on the Elise Series 1 in 1995. He specialised first as an engine technician; the 111S tyre programme was his entrance to dynamics. From 2000 he led Lotus chassis development.
Before a management role he worked on Jaguar’s XKR-S as a Lotus Engineering customer project. Around 2007 he became development lead on the Evora. It won Autocar’s Britain’s Best Driver’s Car contest in 2009. Andy Palmer first approached him for Nissan; as Aston’s CEO he called again. Becker started at Aston Martin on 5 January 2015 as Chief Engineer, Vehicle Attribute Engineering, reporting to product development director Ian Minards. Aston told Top Gear the brief covered vehicle dynamics, NVH, aerodynamics and durability and proving.
Autocar says the DB11 was advanced; he had a bigger hand in the Vantage and oversaw the DBX from the start. Auto Express described his seven-year tenure as overseeing the DBX, Vantage and DB11. Aston Martin unveiled the V12 Speedster at Gaydon on 4 March 2020. Its release said Q by Aston Martin created the 88-example model — no roof or screen, near-all-carbon-fibre body, bonded-aluminium architecture using DBS Superleggera and Vantage elements — and names Miles Nurnberger as Director of Design and Becker as Chief Engineer.
Becker resigned from Aston Martin in summer 2021, months after Autocar’s Mundy Award for Engineering, and was placed on six months’ gardening leave after an approach from McLaren’s Mike Flewitt. When Flewitt left McLaren, the move did not proceed. He joined JLR at the end of January 2022 as Vehicle Engineering Director. Jaguar’s 31 March 2026 release still uses that title and quotes him on the May 2023 Spirit of Jaguar Drive that preceded the new luxury GT.
Composure and linearity
His stated criteria for a fast car were composure, balance, linearity and connection, so the driver could go quickly without fuss. He said that of the DB11 prototype in Italy.
An SUV is not easy
He told Autocar that anyone who thinks an SUV is easy is wrong. The DBX was a four-and-a-half-year programme he oversaw from the start, measuring rivals then setting Aston’s own ride and handling numbers.
The stations
- 1988–1995LotusApprentice, then engine technician
- 1995–2000LotusJunior development engineer, Elise Series 1
- 2000–2014LotusChief Engineer, Vehicle Test and Development
- 2015–2021Aston MartinChief Engineer, Vehicle Attribute Engineering
- 2022–Jaguar Land RoverVehicle Engineering Director
The house
Credited through Aston Martin.
In the register
One file carries 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
“You want composure, balance, linearity, connection. If you combine all that together, you give the driver the confidence to drive the car very quickly with no fuss. The car should be very intuitive to drive. That's what we're looking for.”
Matt Becker · Motor Trend, 20 May 2016