The Ex-Lamborghini Boss Of Audi Sport Is Stepping Up To Bugatti

Mr Audi Sport, formerly Mr Lamborghini, is continuing his pretty meteoric rise up the Volkswagen Group ranks.

Stephan Winkelmann has been appointed President of Bugatti Automobiles from January 1 2018, a day after Wolfgang Durheimer retires. Durheimer, whose career spans long stints at BMW, Porsche, Bentley and Bugatti, plus a couple of years at Audi, has had enough and apparently wants a quieter life. Maybe he wants to build one of these...

Winkelmann presided over the rise and rise of Lamborghini under Audi ownership, overseeing record sales, awesome new models and Scrooge McDuck-style mountains of profits, at least compared to Lamborghini’s bad old days when it couldn’t even break even.

His move to Audi happened less than two years ago, making this hop up to Bugatti something of a surprise, but his expertise with performance cars is clearly valued. Before his 11 years at the helm of Lamborghini, he worked as the CEO of Fiat Auto Austria, Switzerland and Germany. He is fluent in several languages, has a degree in politics and has extremely shiny shoes.

We look forward to seeing what he can do with the projects that succeed the fairly brisk Chiron, which was, of course, Durheimer’s baby.