Volkswagen design boss leaves Bentley man

Andreas Mindt, currently Head of Design at Bentley, will become Head of Design for the Volkswagen brand on February 1, 2023.

This marks the end of Jozef Kaban’s brief tenure as Head of Design at the Volkswagen brand, which only began in 2020. He will transition to the newly created role of Creative Art Director.

From the Volkswagen Group’s Future Center Europe in Potsdam, Kaban will be responsible for the development of “future-oriented mobility solutions for the Volkswagen brand”.

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Sources have told Automotive News Europe that Volkswagen brand CEO Thomas Schäfer was not happy with Kaban’s designs and decided to move him on.

Schaefer reportedly asked Kaban and his team to redesign the upcoming flagship Trinity EV, as well as the ID.Life, a new entry-level EV due around 2025.

Kaban began his working life at Volkswagen before moving to BMW in 2017 to become its design chief before moving sideways to lead Rolls-Royce’s design team. In mid-2020 he returned to Volkswagen as head of design for the volume brand.

His successor Andreas Mindt has spent his entire career at Volkswagen. He started working for the car manufacturer in 1996 after graduating from the Pforzheim University of Design.

Early credits include the exterior of the first generation Tiguan and seventh generation Golf. In 2014 he became Head of Exterior Design at Audi.

In 2021, he was promoted to chief designer at Bentley, where he was tasked with creating a new design language for the super-luxury brand, which aims to become a pure electric vehicle maker by 2030.

Mindt’s only Bentley design to see the light of day to date is the Mulliner Batur Coupe, of which just 18 will be built at a starting price of £1.65 million (US$2.88 million).

Tobias Sühlmann, the British brand’s current head of exterior design, will follow in Mindt’s footsteps as head of Bentley’s 50-strong design team.

While Sühlmann only joined Bentley in 2021, he was previously chief exterior designer for Aston Martin Lagonda from 2018 to 2020 and chief designer for special projects at McLaren between 2020 and 2021.