Jürgen Hubbert, the previous chairman of Mercedes-Benz and the person who helped launch the A-Class and M Class, has died on the age of 81.
The agency’s present chairman, Ola Källenius, paid tribute: “Jürgen Hubbert was Mr Mercedes. With integrity, progressive spirit and nice success, he formed Mercedes-Benz without end.
“Below his duty, a historic product offensive was launched with groundbreaking automobiles, such because the A-Class and M-Class. As a pacesetter, he was capable of combine and encourage his groups with a ardour for know-how and the very best requirements for himself. He’s without end assured of the appreciation of your entire Mercedes household.”
Hubbert joined Mercedes in 1965 as a mechanical engineer, rising up the ranks to turn out to be chairman in 1989, a task he was to fill for 15 years.
It was with Hubbert as chairman that Mercedes pushed into utterly new segments, creating the market niches for which it has since turn out to be well-known. On the identical time, he managed to double its worldwide gross sales.
Hubbert was in cost when the ground-breaking A Class was launched in 1997, full with its intelligent ‘sandwich’ flooring, a revolutionary resolution to more and more stringent crash-testing. It was additionally Hubbert who helped steer the corporate by way of the fallout when the automobile failed the now notorious ‘elk take a look at’ that very same yr.
However his affect stretched past this automobile. He was additionally instrumental in getting the M-Class to market and was behind the choice to construct the automobile within the US, its key market.
It was additionally Hubbert who later admitted that the M-Class wasn’t as much as the standard anticipated of a Mercedes. He additionally created the CLK and helped to launch Sensible as a model.
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