Supercar moves and shakes

Former AMG and Lotus engineering wizard Wolf Zimmermann has joined other senior German executives at Ferrari’s road car division.

The German was invited in to Ferrari by fellow German, Michael Leiters, who came from engineering Porsche’s Cayenne to take over the technical director’s chair vacated by Italian, Roberto Fideli (pictured).

Fideli, in turn, has joined BMW’s M division in a clear sign that the hotshop’s new boss, ex-Audi quattro head Franciscus van Meel, is prioritising handling brilliance over the straight-line sled nature of recent large M cars.

Fideli, a 26-year veteran of the Ferrari engineering department, announced his departure prior to the messy exit of his long-term boss, Luca di Montezemolo, at the Paris motor show.

Known to be a gun in lightweight technologies, Fideli will start at M in November after leading the development of every new Ferrari since 2007.

While Fideli’s career has been a stable one, Zimmermann’s recent professional life has been anything but.

Since leaving AMG after being clashing with then boss, Volker Mornhinweg, then overlooked to head the Mercedes-Benz go-fast operation in favour of Ola Kallenius, Zimmermann found himself Chief Technical Officer at a Lotus of big promises but little real-world progress.

During his time at Mercedes-Benz and AMG, though, he was the brains behind the Mercedes-AMG SLS Electric, the 6.2-litre V8 atmo engine at AMG and the go-to guy for advanced electric and hybrid research at Mercedes-Benz.

Under the stewardship of Danny Bahar, Zimmermann engineered an all-new V8 engine for Lotus and then stepped forward to engineer a completely new dual-clutch transmission as well. The 4.8-litre, all-alloy V8 was said by Zimmermann to rev out to 9500rpm and deliver around 500kW of power.

Yet it came to nought as suppliers, especially German piston specialist Mahle, eventually refused to work on the motor’s development due to unpaid bills.

Since the sale of Lotus to DRB-Hicom in 2012 that drove Bahar from Lotus, Zimmermann has worked with the outrageous promise maker at a start-up tuning house called Ares in Modena. Modena is just 22km from Maranello, so Zimmermann won’t even have to move house to join the Prancing Horse.