Walter de Silva’s 65th birthday - due next February - comes an opportune time for a car designer who has been at his drawing board for well over 40 years.
After 17 years in various roles at the VW Group, and currently the Head of Group design, de Silva has announced that he’s retiring at the end of the month. Although he heads for the door as the VW Group faces the biggest upheaval of its existence, he can be happy, at least, that his area of the company is firing on all cylinders.
de Silva’s first appointment at VW - becoming head of Seat design in 1998 - was indicative of the German motor industry’s search for design soul.
The VW Group has long had a weak spot for British and Italian cars, believing them to have innate character and charm that often escapes their own products. After all, does anyone actual love their Volkswagen Polo or Volkswagen Passat? Or are they cars that can only be admired?
The Germans quietly think that their cultural mindset of technical solutions and an emphasis on engineering (their inability to get old-school diesel engines through US Clean Air laws notwithstanding) lacks the flair and passion that brand theory insists is essential for long-term prosperity.
In German, this desire translates - rather badly - as ‘faszination’. But it’s a word we also understand in English and according to one dictionary definition it’s ‘the exercise of a powerful or irresistible influence on the affections or passions; unseen, inexplicable influence’.
It’s why BMW wanted the Land Rover, Rolls Royce and Mini brands. And why the VW Group bought Bentley, Lamborghini and Ducati. Enthral the car buying public and they’ll not only pay of premium for a product, they’ll also keep coming back.
Hiring de Silva was part of this long process of the VW Group trying to get that ‘faszination’ designed into its future products. De Silva was enticed away from Alfa Romeo for the SEAT gig, after overseeing the iconic Alfa 156.
That’s a car that the car design community still holds in the highest esteem. Many in the industry were astonished that he would make a move away from the Italian car industry. Even in VW’s official press release about de Silva’s retirement, much is made of his authorship of the 156 and 147 models. Clearly, they are two cars that are still seen within VW as benchmarks.
Indeed, Alfa Romeo has been a stone in the shoe of VW Overlord Ferdinand Piëch for many years. It’s a glamour brand he’d love to get his hands on. The logic, as with the purchases of Mini and Land Rover, is simple; imagine combining German technical competence with the flair of a ‘fazsinating’ brand.
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A bit early retirement
Then that resignation probably came about because Piech knew what's coming. Don't blame him for quietly leaving the room just before the .... hit the fan and then dropped and settled in
Celebrating some of Mr Silva's luminous work marks a fond Autocar farewell to the man and his genius but what we would really like to know (in a separate typically illuminating Holloway special piece of course) is his raison de préretraite in a company that allowed Mr Piech to lead the Volkswagen Group 18 years past the age of retirement.
Then that resignation probably came about because Piech knew what's coming. Don't blame him for quietly leaving the room just before the .... hit the fan and then dropped and settled in Mr Winterkorn's gracious lap.
After all nobody of consequence wants their hands seen dirty even after they've multiplied their family fortune in the business of soot. That's why heirs of untold fortunes pick up boys from the street and let them sit next to them in the directors room. They take the blame.
No editing. Thanks Autocar
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Golf 6 "breaking the rules set by the previous models"?
@Tornadorot
Doh!