Mark Lichte | |
|---|---|
| Born | August 9, 1969 |
| Known for | Head of Audi Design |
Marc Lichte is a German automobile designer. He was the head of design at Audi from February 2014 to May 2024 [1] . [2]
He grew up in the north-west region of West Germany.
He studied Transportation Design at a German university.
He joined Volkswagen Group in 1996. At VW he was taught by Hartmut Warkuß, the designer of the first Audi 80, and the former head of design at Audi for twenty five years. [3]
Volkswagen is a German automobile manufacturer based in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. Established in 1937 by the German Labour Front under the Nazi Party, it was revitalized into the global brand it is today after World War II by British Army officer Ivan Hirst. The company is well known for its iconic Beetle and serves as the flagship marque of the Volkswagen Group, which became the world's largest automotive manufacturer by global sales in 2016 and 2017.
Marcello Gandini was an Italian car designer, widely known for his work with the Italian car design house, Bertone, where his work included designing the Alfa Romeo Carabo and Montreal, Lancia Stratos Zero, Maserati Khamsin, Ferrari GT4, Fiat X1/9, and several Lamborghinis, including the Bravo, Miura, Marzal, Espada, Urraco, and Countach. Gandini himself said his design interests prioritised vehicle architecture, construction, assembly, and mechanisms over styling.
The Volkswagen Passat is a nameplate of large family cars (D-segment) manufactured and marketed by the German automobile manufacturer Volkswagen since 1973 and also marketed variously as the Dasher, Santana, Quantum, Magotan, Corsar and Carat — in saloon, estate, and hatchback body styles.
J Carrol Mays is a retired American industrial designer who served as Group Vice President of Global Design and Chief Creative Officer at Ford Motor Company, and was Chief Design Officer at Whirlpool. His name is simply "J", after his grandfather, S J Mays.
Italdesign Giugiaro S.p.A. is a design and engineering company and brand based in Moncalieri, Italy, that traces its roots to the 1968 foundation of Studi Italiani Realizzazione Prototipi S.p.A. by Giorgetto Giugiaro and Aldo Mantovani. Best known for its automobile design work, Italdesign also offers product design, project management, styling, packaging, engineering, modeling, prototyping and testing services to manufacturers worldwide. As of 2019, Italdesign employs 917 people.
Luc Donckerwolke is a Belgian automotive designer, president, and chief creative officer of the Hyundai Motor Group and the Genesis automotive brand. Prior to joining the Hyundai Motor Group, he was the design director at Volkswagen Group's Bentley, Lamborghini, Škoda, and Audi brands. In 2022, a jury panel of 102 journalists among 33 countries named Donckerwolke the "World Car Person of the Year" for significantly impacting the automotive industry.
Freeman Thomas is an American automobile and industrial designer who has worked for Porsche, Volkswagen Group, DaimlerChrysler and Ford.
Walter Maria de Silva is an Italian car designer and former head of Volkswagen Group Design, until 2015. Since beginning his car design career in 1972 as trainee car designer for Fiat's Style Centre. De Silva has also worked as a designer at I.DE.A Institute, and as head of design for Alfa Romeo, SEAT and the 'Audi brand group'. He is presently President of the Design Studio Walter De Silva & Partners.
Volkswagen Group of America, Inc., is the North American operational headquarters, and subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group of automobile companies of Germany. VWoA is responsible for six marques: Audi, Bentley, Lamborghini, and Volkswagen, and in addition is the exclusive importer and distributor of Bugatti and Rimac cars in the U.S. It also controls VW Credit, Inc., Volkswagen's financial services and credit operations. The company is headquartered in Reston, Virginia.
Jozef Kabaň is a Slovak automobile designer. He started his career as a designer at Volkswagen. In 2003 he moved to Audi as an exterior design assistant. In 2007 he advanced to the position of Chief of Exterior Design at Audi. He was exterior designer of the Volkswagen Lupo, SEAT Arosa, Bugatti Veyron and Škoda Octavia. He has been Chief of Exterior Design at Škoda Auto since 2008. In early 2017 he left Škoda for BMW to become its head of design replacing Karim Habib. In 2019 he changed position within BMW Group and headed design at its subsidiary Rolls-Royce Motor Cars. After half a year he decided to leave Rolls-Royce and BMW Group returning to VW in January 2020, this time for its main VW brand. In early 2023, Kabaň was dismissed from Volkswagen and replaced by Bentley designer Andreas Mindt after failing to impress VW's CEO. Bentley replaced Mindt with Tobias Sühlmann.
Wolfgang Josef Egger is a German car designer who formerly served as a head designer for the European luxury car brands Alfa Romeo, Audi and Lamborghini, and currently as the head designer for Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer BYD Auto.
The Volkswagen Group MQB platform is the company's strategy for shared modular design construction of its transverse, front-engine, front-wheel-drive layout automobiles. It was first introduced in the Volkswagen Golf Mk7 in late 2012. Volkswagen spent roughly $8bn developing this new platform and the cars employing it. The platform underpins a wide range of cars from the supermini class to the mid size SUV class. MQB allows Volkswagen to assemble any of its cars based on this platform across all of its MQB ready factories. This allows the Volkswagen group flexibility to shift production as needed between its different factories. Beginning in 2012, Volkswagen Group marketed the strategy under the code name MQB, which stands for Modularer Querbaukasten, translating from German to "Modular Transversal Toolkit" or "Modular Transverse Matrix". MQB is one strategy within VW's overall MB program which also includes the similar MLB strategy for vehicles with longitudinal engine orientation.
Dirk van Braeckel, is a Belgian car designer. He is known for the designing of various models for Volkswagen Group, especially for the Bentley brand.
Peter Schreyer is a German automobile designer widely known for his design contributions to the Audi TT. He has been the chief design officer at Kia Motors since 2006 and, on 28 December 2012, he was named one of three presidents of the company.
Thomas Ingenlath is a German car designer and was the CEO of Polestar, previously Senior Vice President Design at Volvo Cars.
The Audi Q4 e-tron is a battery electric compact luxury crossover SUV produced by Audi. It is based on Volkswagen Group's electric MEB platform and is the fourth fully-electric model in the Audi e-tron series after the Audi Q8 e-tron, e-tron GT and Q2L e-tron. Production began in March 2021, with the production version being unveiled in April 2021.
The Volkswagen Auto 2000 is a concept car first shown by German car company Volkswagen in 1981. It was part of a German government-sponsored program to develop cars for the year 2000. Volkswagen's prototype was joined by efforts from Audi, Mercedes-Benz, and the University Working Group HAG (Hochschularbeitsgemeinschaft). As with the other Auto 2000 concepts, Volkswagen's car focused on fuel economy through the use of efficient engines and streamlining, and many of its features were to end up in series production.
