Ulrich Eichhorn (born 1961) is a German engineer, manager and

car designer Automotive design is the process of developing the appearance (and to some extent the ergonomics) of motor vehicles - including automobiles, motorcycles, trucks, buses, coaches, and vans. The functional design and development of a modern motor ...

Early life and education

Eichhorn was born in Obernburg, Germany. He studied mechanical and

automotive engineering Automotive engineering, along with aerospace engineering and naval architecture, is a branch of vehicle engineering, incorporating elements of mechanical, electrical, electronic, software, and safety engineering as applied to the design, manufactu ...

at Technische Universität Darmstadt. In 1992, he graduated with a doctorate in mechanical engineering from Darmstadt. He is also an alumnus of

Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world and offers a large full-time MBA p ...

, where he was class speaker of AMP174.

Career

Eichhorn worked at Ford Motor Company, becoming head of vehicle dynamics and leading several individual projects. He was involved in designing the first generation Ford Focus, where he worked on the

chassis A chassis (, ; plural ''chassis'' from French châssis ) is the load-bearing framework of an artificial object, which structurally supports the object in its construction and function. An example of a chassis is a vehicle frame, the underpart ...

. He joined Volkswagen Group as director of research in 2000. He was involved in projects such as SunFuel, an alternative fuel, the Volkswagen W12, and the Volkswagen XL1. In 2003, he became a board member at

Bentley Bentley Motors Limited is a British designer, manufacturer and marketer of luxury cars and SUVs. Headquartered in Crewe, England, the company was founded as Bentley Motors Limited by W. O. Bentley (1888–1971) in 1919 in Cricklewood, North ...

, which is owned by Volkswagen Group, with responsibility for technical development. He was in charge of engineering at Bentley during the release of the Bentley Continental GT, the Continental GT Convertible and the Bentley Flying Spur. His motorsport credentials include three consecutive wins of the Tour de Sol, the 24h World Speed Record with the Volkswagen Nardo in 2002 and Bentley's Le Mans victory in 2003. In 2012, Eichhorn was appointed as managing director of Verband der Automobilindustrie (VDA), and in 2016 he was appointed as head of group research and development at Volkswagen. From January 2019 to December 2020, Eichhorn was chairman of the management board of engineering service provider IAV before returning to Volkswagen.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Eichhorn, Ulrich German automobile designers People in the automobile industry 1961 births Living people Harvard Business School alumni Technische Universität Darmstadt alumni