Who's Where: BMW Group reorganizes Design operations

Fri, 09 Jan 2004

BMW Group has announced changes to its design organization, in keeping with the company's stronger focus on its brands BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce. Under the overall direction of Chris Bangle, Director of BMW Group Design, brand specific design studios have been set up for BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce, as well as for the areas BMW Motorrad and BMW M. These new brand studios will accompany the entire development process for new models from the first sketches to the start of production. They will receive support from cross-brand specialist departments responsible for strategic and technical tasks, for example model technology.

The heads of departments responsible up to now for the design of MINI, Rolls-Royce, BMW Motorrad and BMW M will head the respective brand design studios: Gert Volker Hildebrand (MINI), Ian Cameron (Rolls-Royce), David Robb (BMW Motorrad) and Ulf Weidhase (BMW M and Individual). A new yet familiar member of the team is Adrian van Hooydonk who will head the BMW automobile brand studio. Until now Van Hooydonk was president of DesignworksUSA, the Californian design studio of the BMW Group.

An overview of the heads of the brand design studios:

BMW Automobiles
Adrian van Hooydonk, 40, has been a designer at BMW since 1992 and president of DesignworksUSA, the Californian design studio of the BMW Group, since 2001. The Dutch designer developed the exterior design of the current BMW 6 Series and 7 Series among other projects.

BMW Motorrad
David Robb, 48, came to BMW as an exterior designer for automobiles and later headed the exterior design studio. In 1993 he took over as head of BMW Motorrad design.

BMW M and Individual
Ulf Weidhase, 51, came to BMW in 1988 and has headed the design team for BMW M Automobiles and BMW Individual.

MINI
Gert Volker Hildebrand, 50, has headed the MINI design team since 2000. Before this appointment he headed design teams for Volkswagen, Seat and Mitsubishi.

Rolls-Royce
Ian Cameron, 53, came to BMW in 1992 as an exterior designer and among other things was project manager for the design of the 3 Series and the current Range Rover. In 1999 he was appointed the head of the newly-created design team of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars.