LONDON: McLaren Automotive today announced the appointment of Tobias Sühlmann as the company’s new chief design officer, taking up the role in September.
Sühlmann’s career in automotive design spans two decades, having worked for a range of luxury brands including Bentley, Bugatti and Aston Martin.
It is a welcome return to McLaren for Sühlmann who was previously the lead designer for special projects, overseeing the design of the track-only McLaren Solus GT single-seat hypercar based on a video game concept.
Based at the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking, Surrey, Sühlmann will be responsible for every aspect of brand design, leading a design team whose roles span future concepts, exterior and interior styling, colour and materials, often working directly with customers to personalise their vehicles before they are hand-built in the adjoining McLaren Production Centre.
Tobias graduated with a diploma at Germany's Pforzheim University in 2005 before he joined Volkswagen that same year.
He went on to head exterior design at Bugatti and was the exterior design chief at Aston Martin before joining McLaren and then becoming Bentley’s design director, which was his last role before he re-joined McLaren.
Sühlmann will report directly to McLaren Automotive chief executive officer Michael Leiters.
