According to a report in Autocar, the rise through Volkswagen Group ranks accomplished by Audi Sport CEO Stephan Winkelmann will continue in 2018.
Formerly a Fiat employee, the 52-year-old Winkelmann became famous in the auto industry during his decade-long run as president and CEO of Lamborghini. Winkelmann then took over at Audi’s Quattro performance division in March 2016 before changing its name to Audi Sport. But the Rome native’s tenure at Audi Sport will reportedly be cut short by Volkswagen Group’s need to fill the lead position at its flagship brand, Bugatti.
If Autocar’s sources are right, look for Winkelmann to take over at Bentley in 2019, as well. Makes you wonder: Winkelmann has climbed from Fiat to Lamborghini to Audi Sport to Bugatti and Bentley. What’s next?
Though given scant time to dramatically alter the Audi Sport division, there’s no denying the impact Stephan Winkelmann had at Lamborghini.
Winkelmann oversaw massive advances in sales (which doubled during his leadership), Lamborghini’s global dealer network (which tripled in size), and the division’s employee count (which like volume, essentially doubled). In the half-decade prior to Winkelmann taking over, Lamborghini was averaging fewer than 800 annual sales. The brand averaged 2,300 annual sales during the last half-decade in which Winkelmann ran the show in Sant’Agata Bolognese.Winkelmann oversaw the release of the Murciélago-replacing Aventador and the Gallardo-replacing Huracán. Perhaps of even greater importance will be the production of the Urus, the SUV Winkelmann charged Lamborghini’s engineers with developing. The production Urus — hopefully with a different name — is expected to double the brand’s volume.
At Bugatti, Winkelmann will take over from the 59-year-old Wolfgang Dürheimer, who will likely remain in charge at Bentley for a couple more years until Winkelmann fills that position, as well. Autocar reports that the new head of Audi Sport will be Michael-Julius Renz, who is presently in charge of Audi in China.
Renz will be tasked with fulfilling a vision laid out for Audi Sport by Winkelmann, who believed that all-wheel drive was not entirely necessary for all Audi performance models; that RS SUVs were more vital than hardcore R8s.
As for Bugatti, don’t expect Winkelmann to double sales, triple the dealer network, and double the size of the workforce.
[Images: Audi AG, Lamborghini]
Timothy Cain is a contributing analyst at The Truth About Cars and Autofocus.ca and the founder and former editor of GoodCarBadCar.net. Follow on Twitter @timcaincars.
Little known fact: He is the only living relative of “The Most Interesting Man in the World.”
^ You beat me to it!
eruhhh racist much?
It’s a crying shame how much Audi messed up the styling of the new generation 5-series cars. Went from one of their most beautiful designs to, well, meh
Speaking of styling, when did men start wearing such ill fitting suits? To me, they always seem to be about a half size too small. Maybe it’s a new thing or maybe I’m just old. For some reason, it just doesn’t look right.
It’s the “slim fit” suit thing, and I’m with you: bleaaaacccccch.
Agreed. Small jacket, weird shirt collar, tapered pant cuffs. That’s going to look worse than wide lapels when it goes out of style. Worst of all, he probably paid a fortune for it.
Could not agree more !
Timeless ‘class’ is NOT skinny jean, beta male, hipster 3 day beard. And 1/2 size too small suits.
Dude- You will look like a jag off in a picture 10 years from now.
10 years from now?
I work for a German company and I’ve spent my fair share of time around Germans. Their style of dress in general is very different than ours. They generally view Americans as fat and sloppy when it comes to attire. The whole slim fit thing is huge over there. That said, styles are always changing. Look at pictures of yourself from more than ten years ago and you’ll probably think you looked pretty stupid or at the very least definite out of style by today’s standards.
Wow. Just wow.
Is he the reason why we can’t buy any manual RS# cars anymore?
The RS5 was never available with a manual transmission…. Not that I remember.