Peter Arnell is joining De Tomaso Automobili SpA as a board member and chief innovation and design officer, AutoObserver.com has learned.

Former chief innovation officer for Chrysler under the previous regime, the New York-based branding and design guru now is responsible for the development, definition and oversight worldwide of all De Tomaso design, products, brand, marketing, communication and merchandising.

"With this new appointment De Tomaso continues to grow and strengthen its organization," the company said. De Tomaso "will count on [Arnell's] many years' experience as one of the most famous international design, brand and marketing gurus."

Arnell will be pressed into service immediately: The reconstituted De Tomaso plans to launch the first model under its new ownership in March at the Geneva Auto Show, Arnell told AutoObserver. "There's the potential [for presenting] two models" at the show, Arnell said.

In any event, new De Tomaso vehicles will use a patented new manufacturing technology, called Univis. Arnell declined to provide details.

Gian Mario Rossignolo bought De Tomaso out of liquidation in 2009. The original company was founded by an Argentine, Alejandro de Tomaso, in Modena, Italy, in 1959. In the Seventies, a De Tomaso design called the Pantera put the company on the map internationally as an elite sports-car maker, and Lincoln and Mercury dealers sold it in the U.S. For a time, De Tomaso also owned the legendary Italian sports-car marque, Maserati. But sporadic sales successes were too much for the company to overcome, and it went into liquidation in 2004.

Arnell said that De Tomaso would be able to overcome its absence from the market. "I'm pleasantly surprised by how many people seem to know it, especially in the consumer world," he said. "It has an incredible mythology. There are Pantera clubs all over the world."

He called De Tomaso "a fresh canvas waiting to be brought into modern terms" that nevertheless "comes out of an extraordinary tradition of building great cars." The Rossignolo family, Arnell said, "made a decision that they wanted to really have someone in position who understands design and brands, marketing, sales and identity."

Arnell has a lifelong affinity for Italy. "Where better to practice the subject of car design and manufacturing than Italy?" he said. And De Tomaso, he said, "seems like the ideal environment for creating great and inspired designs."

Arnell is returning to the auto business after about a year away from it. He designed and developed a Neighborhood Electric Vehicle called Peapod for Chrysler's electric-car unit, but Fiat pulled the plug on the venture when it took over Chrysler last summer.

Chrysler had employed Arnell as a design and branding impresario two different times. First, he consulted for the company beginning in 2001. And he rejoined Chrysler after Cerberus bought the automaker three years ago, invited back into the fold as acting chief innovation officer by then-CEO Robert Nardelli.

Founder of the firm Arnell, he is an extremely high-profile consultant. Arnell was behind the global launch of the DKNY brand, a force propelling McDonalds' "I'm Lovin' It" theme, revamper of the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami and designer of the new logo that Pepsi is rolling out in various iterations across its global markets. He has helped overhaul Samsung, Banana Republic and scores of other brands, and his roster of consulting clients boasts Fortune 500 companies ranging from Johnson & Johnson to Unilever, Pfizer to Masterfoods.