The father of golf joined Chang'an, where are the designers of BYD and Geely?
"Former Volkswagen designer joins Changan", this news has recently attracted the attention of many people in the car circle.
On October 7, Changan Automobile officially announced that Klaus Zyciora, former global head of design of Volkswagen Group, officially joined Changan Automobile as vice president of Changan Automobile, in charge of Changan Automobile's global design.
In 1989, Klaus Zichora officially joined Volkswagen as an interior designer, then became the head of Volkswagen interior design in 2000, the head of Volkswagen exterior design in 2002, the head of global design of Volkswagen in 2007, and the head of design of Volkswagen Group in 2020, in charge of the design of 12 Volkswagen brands, including Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche, etc.
Klaus Cichora has participated in and been responsible for the design of a number of Volkswagen's global best-selling models and star models, including the Bugatti Veyron, the redesigned Beetle, as well as the Volkswagen ID. series and the Audi e-tron series, and also designed the "Four Generations of Volkswagen Family Design Series". He has also created many great works and legends, and has led the design of the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth generation of the Golf that made the Golf a global legend.
Klaus Zichora is a truly top designer, and Klaus Zichora joined Chang'an, which is also a measure Chang'an made to fill Chen Zheng's departure from auspiciousness.
China is already at the forefront of the world in the field of intelligence and electrification, and Chinese car design, Chinese brands have long been through overseas top designers to keep up with the global pace, and even out of a unique Chinese and Western aesthetic design road, now let's take a look at who the designers of other domestic mainstream brands are, and what works they have.
BYD-Wolfgang Joseph Egger
Ten years ago, BYD's car design was still in the stage of imitation and borrowing, and now the exterior design of BYD cars has blazed its own path, and this is inseparable from Egger.
Wolfgang Joseph Iger joined the Alfa Romeo brand after graduating from the International College of Arts and Sciences in Milan, Italy. In 1993, Mr. Iger became the brand's chief designer.
In 1998, Wolfgang Joseph Iger became the chief designer of the SEAT brand, and his works during the SEAT period included acclaimed models such as Ibiza and Cordoba.
In 2001, Wolfgang Joseph Iger returned to the Alfa Romeo brand. The 156, 166, and the dazzling 8C Competizione are all masterpieces of Mr. Iger during the Alfa Romeo era.
In 2007, Wolfgang Joseph Iger became Head of Design at Audi Group. During this period, he was responsible for the design of the Audi and Lamborghini brands, and under his leadership, he completed the design of well-known models such as the Audi A6 and the Audi quattro concept, and "three-dimensionalized" the hexagonal grille of the Audi family.
On January 1, 2012, he began to lead the design direction of the Audi brand, and after three years left the Audi Group for Turin, Italy, to join the management of the Giorgiaro Design Studio as styling director of the Audi Italian subsidiary.
At the end of 2016, former Audi design director Egger joined BYD, and finally created the popular "Dragon Face" family-style design language, according to foreign media speculation that Egger has an annual salary of $2-5 million.
Starting from the Song MAX in 2018, and then to the Han, Qin, Tang, Song, and Yuan series, Longyan design has become one of BYD's signs. And according to the different forms of power, Long Yan has also formed different styles.
In the past two years, Iger has created marine design aesthetics for BYD Ocean Network, and dolphins, seagulls, and dolphins are representative works under marine aesthetics.
Gilly-Stephen Silph
Stephen Silaf is Vice President of Global Design of Geely Automobile Group, overseeing the design of Geely, Geometry, Lynk & Co and Zeekr brands.
Stephen Siraf has worked for Audi, Daimler, Volkswagen, Bentley and other companies, and during his time at Audi, Sirav was responsible for the Quattro Spyder project and numerous production car projects.
From 2003 to 2005, Silav worked at DaimlerChrysler, where he was responsible for the design of Mercedes-Benz CLS.
In 2006, Silaf joined Audi AG again as Design Director, where he led the design of major models such as the A1, A5, A7, R8, Q3, Q5 and Q7.
In 2015, Siraf joined Bentley as Design Director. During this time, he led the design and development of new Bentley product lines, including the Continental GT, Continental Convertible, Flying Spur and Bentayga.
On September 6, 2021, he joined Geely and was appointed as Vice President of Global Design of Geely Automobile Group, Vice President of Zeekr Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. and Global Design Director of Geely.
In these two years, Stephen Silaf has a total of two works, namely Extreme Krypton 009 and Extreme Krypton X.
Both products have their own unique points in design, and have caused heated discussions at the appearance level, especially the design of Extreme Krypton 009, which breaks the shackles brought by Alpha to MPV models in appearance and gives new ideas for the design of future MPV models.
At present, BYD, Geely and Changan are the three giants of domestic brands, in addition to these three companies, other independent brands also more or less employ overseas well-known designers, such as Hongqi has former Rolls-Royce design director - Giles Taylor, Great Wall Haval has former Land Rover design director - Phil Simmons, these designers have left a strong mark on domestic cars, I believe that our own domestic designers in China can also appear on the stage like domestic cars.