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Spooktacular: Stellantis designer haunts office with outrageous Halloween costumes
Posted by Talbot Payne on October 30, 2024
It’s late October and that means Stellantis NV designers have dressed up their latest, highly-anticipated muscle cars and trucks in outrageous, aftermarket costumes for display at the Specialty Equipment Manufacturers Association Show in Las Vegas early next month. Think Plymouth GTX Electromod, Ram 2500 Power Wagon Concept, Moparized Ram 1500 RHO.
Late October also means that chief interior designer Ryan Nagode will unveil his latest outrageous costume for the annual Halloween office party.
Like the full-size Big Bird costume he wore in 2022. The costume required that (similar to the original Muppets character) he put on the full Monty, hold the huge head up with his right hand while cradling a smartphone in his left that carried the video feed from a camera between Big Bird’s eyes so he could see where he was going in the cavernous halls of the automaker’s Auburn Hills U.S. headquarters.
Other costumes have included Animal, Chewbacca, Jack Sparrow, Beetlejuice and C-3PO. What will it be this year?
“Sometimes I’ll drive to work in my costume,” said the 21-year design veteran. “Jack Sparrow or Beetlejuice were good. . . it’s pretty funny to see the looks at a stop light. (But) this year I’m gonna have to put it on at the office.”
Nagode’s over-the-top creations have become the main act of Spooktacular, as the design department calls its annual gathering, where employees show up in costume.
Dozens of designers are scheduled to convene Wednesday in the headquarters’ Design Dome, including Nagode’s boss and Stellantis Chief Design Officer Ralph Gilles, who usually shows up in a black wig. Designers will celebrate alongside a gallery of Nagode’s past designs, then spill out into headquarters to spread the Halloween vibe.
It’s a tradition Nagode began 14 years ago. His then 1-year old son became obsessed with the Cookie Monster after a group of Sesame Street characters greeted passengers at the airport.
“He would not let go of the Cookie Monster,” Nagode remembers. “And I thought he’d love it if Cookie Monster showed back up. That’s the first full-fledged costume I put together. And I dressed him up in a little cookie and held him as if Cookie Monster was taking a bite.”
For fun, Nagode also wore the costume to work for Halloween 2010.
“I was probably the only one in a building of 12,000 people that dressed up,” he said with a laugh. “It was hilarious, just walking around, having lunch. In costume it was a little difficult to eat, but Cookie Monster only ate cookies, so it’s all good.”
Every year he’d show up in a new suit. “I would see a few people dress up, you know, and then after a while, there’s an expectation level, right?”
Chewbacca was a challenge as Nagode recreated the suit that 7’3” actor Peter Mayhew wore in the “Star Wars” movies. It’s a character that could only fit in a Millennium Falcon spaceship. Or Ram 2500 Power Wagon.
“I wear an 18-inch pair of stilts inside the suit, and that gets me up to about the height of May,” smiled Nagode. “He was a tall, tall fella. I think he himself wore four-inch risers. That’s half the fun — trying to replicate exactly what was done.”
Ryan’s creative talents have deep roots.
As he grew up in Buffalo, New York, his mother made him Halloween costumes while Ryan would transform their home into a Halloween scare-scape. His father was a toy designer at Fisher-Price.
“My mom always made costumes. She was going to Joann Fabrics and Michaels and getting patterns, and putting it together,” he said. “I have fond memories of her spending countless hours sewing and creating things. Couple that with I’ve always loved movie set design — so it’s being creative in a couple different ways.”
While Ryan says there were no Halloween costume classes at the Cleveland Institute of Art where he studied auto design, his day job does inform his hobby. Americans live in their cars, and interior designers have access to a variety of materials to make them feel at home. Nagode applies those industrial design skills to his art.
“The paint process, especially — like C-3PO. I used Bondo and fiberglass and automotive paint, that type of stuff,” he said. “I’ve done scale representations in clay. In order to mold and shape Chewbacca, I had to sculpt him in clay in order to pull a cast off.”
Nagode graduated from CLA in 2003, and went right to work at Daimler Chrysler. He was named vice president of interior design for Ram/Dodge/Chrysler/Jeep last year.
Nagode’s attention to costume detail reflects his work on his brands’ interior designs, which are among the industry’s most celebrated.
The annual SEMA Show in Vegas is a chance for designers to take their creations to another level with Stellantis’s Mopar accessories toy box. The SEMA jamboree is led by Nagode’s exterior counterpart, Mark Trostle, but the interior team advises along the way.
“There is the sport-truck flair that we have in the production RHO truck,” he said of the Ram 1500 concept that he posed with in Animal costume. “I think we took it as far as we could go from the production side, (then Trostle’s team) really took it past that. It’s awesome to see.”
Nagode said his hobby pairs well with his professional career.
“I’m not sitting down with a sheet of paper creating the next interior specifically for myself, right? That’s what I do with my team,” he said. The costume is “a chance to step away and be creative in another way.”
On Tuesday, Stellantis unveiled its SEMA concepts, including the electric, retro, 335-horse Frostbite Blue Plymouth with three-spoke, bronze steering wheel and IndiGo Blue leather interior. The 540-horse Ram RHO (aka Rhino) is dressed in satin metallic Diamond Black exterior with fender flares, 37-inch tires, and blue interior highlights. And the 2500 Power Wagon Concept puts on a bed rack system and leather/suede interior.
On Wednesday, Nagode will reveal his latest costume creation.
“The anticipation factor is good,” he said of the annual rite (disrupted only by the COVID years). “It’s nice to have everyone guessing.”
Henry Payne is auto critic for The Detroit News. Find him at hpayne@detroitnews.com or @HenryEPayne.