McLaren Automotive has appointed Tobias Suhlmann as its new Chief Design Officer, efficient from September 2023. Suhlmann has a profitable profession in automotive design spanning over 20 years, having labored for a number of famend luxurious manufacturers equivalent to Bentley, Bugatti, and Aston Martin.
The appointment marks a return to McLaren for Suhlmann, who was beforehand the Chief Designer for Particular Initiatives. In that function, he oversaw the design of the McLaren Solus GT single-seat hypercar, which was based mostly on a online game idea.
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As the brand new Chief Design Officer, Suhlmann can be based mostly in Surrey, the place he can be accountable for main a design staff that handles each side of brand name design. It will embody future ideas, exterior and inside styling, shade and supplies, and personalization of automobiles for purchasers. His function will even contain working carefully with clients to create bespoke designs for his or her automobiles, which can then be hand-built within the adjoining McLaren Manufacturing Heart.
Suhlmann started his profession in automotive design in 2005, after graduating with a diploma from Pforzheim College. He labored at Volkswagen earlier than transferring on to turn out to be Head of Exterior Design at Bugatti after which at Aston Martin. He subsequently joined McLaren because the Chief Designer for Particular Initiatives from October 2020 to September 2021, earlier than changing into Bentley’s Director of Design in his final function earlier than returning to McLaren.
In his new function, Suhlmann will report on to Michael Leiters, the Chief Govt Officer of McLaren Automotive.
“We’re delighted to welcome Tobias to the McLaren staff. He’s a extremely skilled automotive designer with an current understanding of McLaren having beforehand labored on our ground-breaking Solus GT mission. Tobias will play a number one function in creating McLaren’s new design language throughout our creating product portfolio as a part of our Way forward for Efficiency enterprise technique,” mentioned Leiters.
McLaren has been hiring again its earlier executives. Earlier than Suhlmann, Charles Sanderson was employed by the automaker as Chief Technical Officer. Sanderson was McLaren’s head of software program improvement earlier than he left for Rivian in 2018.
