Volkswagen design boss Andreas Mindt has quickly outlined his vision for the marque with the ID 2all and the ID GTI concepts, which show a return to a more friendly and familiar design look for VW.
Coming as part of its goal to be a ‘loved brand’ once more, production versions will go on sale in 2025.
Mindt, who has been in his current position for less than a year, was one of the key designers of the seventh-generation Volkswagen Golf, and rejoined Volkswagen after moving to other brands within the group.
He led exterior design at Audi and was design chief at Bentley in his two most recent roles. Here, he tells Autocar his plans for this new design philosophy that sees the firm return to being “the nice guys”.
He says: “We’re a ‘love’ brand, with trustable design, a strong identity and authenticity and built on three pillars: stable, likeable and with a ‘secret sauce’, which is about delivering more than people expect and with a sense of humour.”
Q&A with Andreas Mindt, VW Group head of design
The ID 2all is a very European car. Is global design a thing of the past?
“Global design became complicated and unnecessary. Current ID line-up has a global design feel but that will change We now have seven regions with specific portfolios: Europe, South America, North America, FAW in China, SAIC in China [the last two are joint ventures], our own new design centre upcoming in China and our sub-brand in China for Jetta.
"Even in China, all tastes are different, the traffic looks different, the people look different: it’s like travelling between Finland and Portugal. We have the same values across the world but certain design elements are different. You don’t put your fishing rod in the same lake.”
Were the ID 3, ID 4 and ID 5 created as global cars?
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VWs appeal to inferior bogans (chavs) who need to feel superior to other bogans.
VW could start by showing a lot more respect for their paying customers.
Twin charger, DSG, the defeat device and the poor interior ergonomics of the ID range and recent models just show how the company is obsessed with being number one, rushing things to market before proper development has taken place, and sticking two fingers up at the buying public. They admitted this obsession after "dieselgate", but those words were quietly forgotten again. Unfortunately, they have such a slick marketing team that they continually seem to get away with it.