Moves afoot at Volkswagen

Bentley and Bugatti boss Wolfgang Durheimer is the highest profile VW Group player looking for a new house after a huge weekend executive reshuffle.

While Audi boss Rupert Stadler is staying put, Mr Durheimer is heading to Audi as head of Development, a role he held with Porsche before taking up the CEO position at Bentley in February, 2011.

While Audi has yet to confirm the date of the 53-year-old Mr Durheimer’s arrival, he will replace current R&D boss Michael Dick, 60, who plans to retire in September.

Mr Durheimer has been a key player in trying to pull Porsche, Audi, Bentley and Lamborghini products onto common platform architectures.

His transfer to Audi’s Ingolstadt head office is seen by insiders as a move to end political infighting which saw Audi attempting to keep its R8/Gallardo architecture separate from Porsche’s own planned mid-engined supercar. His other tough jobs include pulling the next versions of the Bentley Continental GT and the Panamera onto the same architecture and doing the same for small sports cars and SUVs.

Mr Durheimer will be replaced at Bentley by Speaker of the Board of Management for Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, Wolfgang Schreiber (pictured).

But Mr Durheimer isn’t the only former car company boss on the move, with former Alfa Romeo Managing Director Luca de Meo, 44, shifting from Volkswagen’s head of marketing to replace Peter Schwarzenbauer as Audi’s head of sales.

Other senior Audi figures affected in the moves, announced on Saturday, include head of procurement, Ulf Berkenhagen, heading up the same role for VW’s Commercial Vehicle group, and production boss Frank Dreves announcing that he will retire later in the year.

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