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Luc Donckerwolke named Director of Design for Bentley

Bentley has announced Luc Donckerwolke will take over as the automaker's Director of Design. Donckerwolke started with Volkswagen in 1992 as a designer for Audi. Since then, he's worked with Škoda, Lamborghini and Seat in various design roles. His resume includes helping sketch out both the Lamborghini Murciélago and Gallardo among other notable models.
The designer steps into the vacancy left by Dirk van Braeckel, who has moved on to work with Volkswagen Group design under Walter de Silva.
As you may recall, van Braeckel is responsible for a number of Bentley's most successful models, including both the Continental GT and the Mulsanne. He joined the ultra luxury automaker in 1999. You can take a look at the official announcement below for more information.

The Bentley Bacalar went from a sketch to a 650-hp roadster in nine months

Bentley's Mulliner division cemented its status as a modern-day coachbuilder when it unveiled the Bacalar, a two-seater roadster loosely based on the Continental GT. Nearly every part that drivers will see and feel is specific to the model, including the body panels and most of the interior, yet the company created it in just nine months. Mulliner has worked on many one- and few-off models in the past, it notably turned the stately Mulsanne into a six-seater limousine in 2016, but the Bacalar (pictured) takes customization to an entirely new level. Repeated requests from its most loyal clients convinced Bentley to expand the scope of its coachbuilding division. "We felt a strong demand from our high-end customers. They asked again and again, 'can you do something very special?' They weren't talking about one of a hundred, but one of 10 or even one of one," explained Stefan Sielaff, the company's lead designer, in an interview with Autoblog. He added the Bacalar project started shortly after Bentley introduced the EXP 100 GT in 2019 to celebrate its 100th birthday. This explains some of the visual parallels between the two cars. While the concept was electric, the sold-out production model receives a mighty, 650-horsepower W12 engine because Bentley couldn't create a suitable battery-powered drivetrain in the short amount of time it had to make the roadster a reality. Sielaff stressed the effort his team put into making the Bacalar in nine months shouldn't be underestimated. "We had to make sure the car was road-legal, homologated, and certified. The car you would have seen at the Geneva auto show is literally what the customer will get. It's not a crazy show car. The only difference will be the colors and the materials, because we will work with each customer to make an individual statement," he said. In the United States, the Bacalar will be imported under the Show and Display law, like the McLaren Speedtail. The expedited design process meant the 12 future Bacalar owners signed the dotted line after seeing only digital renderings of the car. They weren't shown the final product until much later. Their enthusiasm is encouraging; it tells Sielaff there's a tremendous appetite for one- and few-off Bentley models among wealthy clients.

Ferdinand Piech (1937-2019): The man who made VW global

Towering among his peers, a giant of the auto industry died Sunday night in Rosenheim/Upper Bavaria, Germany. Ferdinand Piech, a grandson of Ferdinand Porsche, who conceived the original Volkswagen in the 1930s, was the most polarizing automotive executive of our times. And one who brought automotive technology further than anyone else. Ferdinand Porsche had a son, Ferdinand (called "Ferry"), and a daughter, Louise, who married the Viennese lawyer Anton Piech. They gave birth to Ferdinand Piech, and his proximity to two Alfa Romeo sports cars — Porsche had done some work for the Italians — and the "Berlin-Rome-Berlin" race car, developed by Porsche himself, gave birth to Piech's interest in cars. After his teachers in Salzburg told his mother he was "too stupid" to attend school there, Piech, who was open about his dyslexia, was sent to a boarding school in Switzerland. He subsequently moved on to Porsche, where he fixed issues with the 904 race car and did major work on the 911. But his greatest project was the Le Mans-winning 917 race car, developed at breathtaking financial cost. It annihilated the competition, but the family had had enough: Amid growing tension among the four cousins working at Porsche and Piech's uncle Ferry, the family decided to pull every family member, except for Ferry, out of their management positions. Piech started his own consultancy business, where he designed the famous five-cylinder diesel for Mercedes-Benz, but quickly moved on to Audi, first as an engineer and then as CEO, where he set out to transform the dull brand into a technology leader. Piech killed the Wankel engine and hammered out a number of ambitious and sophisticated technologies. Among them: The five-cylinder gasoline engine; Quattro all-wheel drive and Audi's fantastic rally successes; and turbocharging, developed with Fritz Indra, whom Piech recruited from Alpina. The Audi 100/200/5000 became the world's fastest production sedan, thanks to their superior aerodynamics. Piech also launched zinc-coated bodies for longevity — and gave diesel technology a decisive boost with the advent of the fast and ultra-efficient TDI engines. Less known: Piech also decided to put larger gas tanks into cars. Customers loved it. Piech's first-generation Audi V8 was met with derision by competitors; it was too obviously based on the 200/5000.