Bentley CEO Woflgang Durheimer prepares to move on for a new job at Audi.
In the scheme of things, Wolfgang Durheimer wasn’t at Bentley all that long but he will be leaving a legacy that will see the ultra-luxury maker continue to undergo major changes for years to come. That includes its controversial entry into the SUV segment.
Now, Durheimer sets off for Audi, another premium brand in the Volkswagen AG empire – where observers expect him to again leave an indelible stamp.
As the result of an unexpected, corporate-wide management shake-up , Durheimer will leave Bentley next month to become the R&D chief at Audi – a job similar to what he’d previously held with Porsche. His hope, he said during an interview, is to have “made Bentley sustainable for the future.”
The key to that, he contends, is the launch of the British maker’s third product line, an all-new sport-utility vehicle, which Durheimer promises will be, “the most expensive SUV in the world,” with an expected base price of between 170,000 and 200,000 Euros, or roughly $220,000 to $260,000 at current exchange rates.
The EXP-9F made its controversial debut at the Geneva Motor Show, earlier this year, and was in Pebble Beach, California last weekend for a first close-up viewing by potential customers at the tony Concours d’Elegance.
The prototype has garnered a mixed response, critics savaging the design, and Durheimer acknowledged, “It is polarizing, especially the front end. But Bentley owners give it better ratings than the mass market.”
Good enough reviews, apparently, that the VW Group subsidiary will put an SUV based on the show car into showrooms around the world in 2015.
And that might not be the end of Bentley’s product proliferation. Durheimer’s predecessor, Franz-Josef Paefgen, oversaw the addition of the Continental line and the development of a replacement flagship, the Bentley Mulsanne. He had also wanted to add a base sedan line – something Durheimer put on hold to focus on what he saw as a more important SUV.
No surprise, there, as Bentley research showed owners were already buying luxury utes from the likes of Land Rover and Porsche.
In his previous role at Porsche, Durheimer was given credit for spearheading development of the sports car maker’s equally controversial Cayenne SUV – now a mainstay of the brand. And like the Cayenne, the production Bentley ute “will not be an off-roader,” he explains, “at least not in terms of how people use it. They will use it for daily transportation,” though it will have the capability of doing far more, if needed.
As at Porsche, the new SUV could become one of the Bentley brand’s big volume nameplates, helping boost overall demand to as much as 15,000 annually, the outgoing executive forecasts.
The idea of adding an even smaller, lower cost model hasn’t entirely vanished. But Durheimer plans to pass that decision to his own successor. Part of the problem Bentley would face is trying to maintain its exclusivity. But it would also run into new competition as it drops into a more mainstream segment where Mercedes-Benz and BMW now dominate.
In his new role, Durheimer will not only oversee R&D at Audi but also its subsidiaries Lamborghini and Ducati, the Italian super-bike maker it recently purchased.
It will be a critical time for Audi, in particular, as the luxury brand has been steadily gaining ground on long-time rivals BMW and Mercedes, especially in the U.S. where Audi had long been a distant number three among high-line German brands.
On a broader level, Durheimer will play a major role in a major transformation that will impact every corner of the 12-brand Volkswagen empire. The company is investing billions of Euros to shift to a new product development and manufacturing system that will rely on four extremely flexible platforms that cover everything from compact front-drive sedans to exotic rear-engine supercars.
“This is a really sophisticated, high-tech strategy,” Durheimer boasts, “and it has the advantage that it can’t be copied” by competitors for a number of years.
Indeed, a senior executive at General Motors told TheDetroitBureau.com that the new strategy is something that could give VW “a serious competitive advantage.”
Durheimer emerged from the recent executive shake-up at VW as one of the company’s favored princes. How much further up the chain of command he will go is anything but certain and will likely depend upon his actions at Audi. But one thing is clear, talented engineers have the fast track to themselves at the German company.
“If you’re not a technician,” he said, “I don’t think you’ll have a good chance for a top position” at Volkswagen going forward.