Gert Volker Hildebrand to retire as head of MINI’s Design studio

MINI is announcing that at the end of this year Gert Volker Hildebrand will handover his job as Director of MINI Design studio to Anders Warming. Gert Hildebrand will be leaving the company on the 31st of December of 2010.

Gert Volker Hildebrand has been the Head of the MINI Design studio since 2001 and over the last ten years was responsible for the complete design development of the MINI brand.

In the command of the Design studio he gave the strength to countless MINI vehicle concepts and to the entire design development. Besides the further development of the third generation of the classic MINI, he was also the leader of the team that created the MINI Cabrio and MINI Clubman. The Countryman has been the latest model added to the MINI family. The real 4-door version model was also developed under his leadership.

Two other models that will arrive in the market over the next two years are also part of Gert Volker Hildebrand’s guidance. The MINI Coupé (set for 2011) and the MINI Roadster (set for 2012), which have been presented as concepts in 2009, will be the last works of Hildebrand, as head of MINI Design, to arrive to the market. Apart from designing cars, Gert Volker Hildebrand has also devoted himself to encouraging young designers and to talking about design in institutions and to the public.

Anders Warming, currently head of Exterior Design at BMW Automobiles, will be Hildebrand’s substitute. The 38-year-old Dane started working for DesignworksUSA in California in 1997. He then was employed in various positions as an automobile designer before arriving, as Team Leader, to Advanced Design at BMW Group, in 2005. Just two years later he became head of Exterior Design of BMW Automobiles. Under his leadership, the BMW Z4, BMW 5 Series and the BMW Concept 6 Series Coupé, presented at the Paris Auto Show, were created.

"I would like to wish Gert Hildebrand all the best for the future and thank him for working with us so well and so successfully", says Adrian van Hooydonk, head of BMW Group Design. "Anders Warming has the expertise, the necessary experience and the intuition to take the MINI brand, with the support of the entire MINI Design team, into an ever more successful future."