Automotive News Europe - March 2, 2009 - 11

March 2, 2009 www.autonewseurope.com · PAGE 11 Questionnaire Van Braeckel’s spark was Ickx’s Le Mans win Name: Dirk van Braeckel. Title: Bentley director of design. Age: 51. Languages: English, German, Dutch, French. Nationality: Belgian. Family: Wife, Hanna; daughter Josephine, 15. Countries lived in: Belgium, Germany, Czech Republic, UK. Education: A degree in automotive design from the Royal College of Art, London; degree in electronics from the Free Technical Institute in Deinze, Belgium. What was your first car? Porsche 911. (I saved a long time.) What’s in your garage? A true design icon – a Jaguar E Type S1 Coupe and an Audi A5. Which person or event has had the greatest influence on you? Jacky Ickx at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1969 on TV. It got me hooked on a passion for cars and racing. What’s your greatest personal achievement? Design success achieved with Skoda and Bentley. What do you do to relax? I am always busy with many things on my mind, it’s hard to relax. If you could work in another industry, what would it be? It’s hard to imagine, but likely in a creative world. What’s the first thing you do when you get home? Get run over by our dog Tiger. What kind of books do you read? I am not an avid reader apart from motor sports publications. If you could meet any figure from history, who would it be and why? Barack Obama. He is going to make history. What traits do you dislike in others? Having too much self-confidence. What do you dislike about your job? The non-creative paperwork. If you could change anything about yourself what would it be? I wish I were prepared to take the risks now that I used to take so easily. When are you not at your best? Monday morning. Excluding your family, what is your most treasured possession? My limited-series Breitling Navitimer wristwatch. What companies do you admire outside the car business? Apple and Pioneer. What kind of vacations do you like? Spontaneous journeys by car. No pre-booked holidays. When you were a child, what did you want to be as an adult? A racecar driver or an astronaut. Describe your perfect day. At work: Realizing sketch ideas in a full-sized clay model. During my free time: Kart racing with my daughter Josephine. What is your fondest memory? Falling in love with Hanna. What’s your greatest extravagance? My house. How would you describe your character? Calm, thoughtful, patient. Dirk van Braeckel, Bentley design director Dirk van Braeckel began his auto career as a modeler and trainee designer at the Cologne design studio of Ford, which sponsored him to study automotive design at London’s Royal College of Art. After graduating in 1984, he spent a decade with Audi’s exterior design team in Ingolstadt. Cars based on his work included the 80 Avant and Cabriolet and the A5 and A3 design concepts. In 1994, he became part of the design team at sister brand Skoda, where his work resulted in the Octavia. In April 1999 van Braeckel set up a design team for Bentley in a new studio in Crewe, England. He relinquished responsibility for Skoda design at the start of 2000. What is the most fun you have had in the last year that has nothing to do with the car business? Seeing my daughter take second place in a national-level kart race. Where do you like to go on vacation? Belgium and Italy. What CDs are in your car now? An iPod with a few thousand songs of all genres. What is your current state of mind? Very reflective of the state the car industry is in at the moment. What’s your favorite restaurant? Palffy Palace in Prague. Great food and I have good memories there. Which talent would you like to have? To be able to play the guitar. Bettina Mayer Confidential A spokesman for local police said: “We checked the tires and the car in general and everything was in order – the law book has restrictions on dogs and cats – but there was nothing about cows. So we let him go on his way.” It’s not known if Bloch asked the animals: “Cow’s my driving?” Photo: actionpress.de Do not rush the bus Every driver knows how frustrating it is to be stuck behind a slow-moving bus. Some people patiently wait for a chance to pass safely. Others will take a much bigger risk to get past the lumbering giant – the results of the attempted pass can be deadly. That is why some buses in the UK are being equipped with the socalled TailGuardian. Because of a unique visual filtering algorithm, decals on the back of the buses can be seen when a driver gets too close to the bus – two seconds is the accepted following distance. “You see nothing until you get close to the two-second distance,” said Kenny McMillan of TailGuardian. “Then you see the sign Get the message? telling you to keep back.” Buses can be fitted with several different signs that can be seen at different speeds and distances, McMillan said. Andrew Davis, director of the UK-based Environmental Transport Association, which is leading the initiative, said: “Overtaking large vehicles can be treacherous, so the back end of a bus is an ideal place to remind drivers if they are speeding or tailgating.” Opponents of the plan fear that the next step will be speed cameras mounted on the backs of buses. Front-row seats The end of prohibition Get a moooove on! Volkswagen has reversed a decision to ban non-VW group cars from entering its Baunatal site in northern Germany. “The fundamental thing is that partners and suppliers are welcomed to our sites when they drive our products,” a works council leader said. The prohibition of non-VW products on the site has been removed, however, meaning that Baunatal is no longer a no-go zone for Fremdmarken (German for other brands). However, if you’re a supplier, let’s say that, reading between the lines of the statement, it’s probably still best to leave the MercedesBenz or BMW at home and rent a Golf for the day when visiting the No longer verboten. site. Family summit at Yellow Angels Volkswagen enjoyed success earlier this year at Germany’s prestigious ADAC automotive awards. The members of ADAC, Europe’s largest automobile club, voted VW’s sixthgeneration Golf the best car in Europe. The club has 16.3 million members, 357,000 of whom took part in the vote. VW, Europe’s biggest carmaker, saw three of its cars in the top five positions. The ADAC members voted the Scirocco into fourth place and the Passat CC finished fifth. In second spot was Opel’s Insignia and the MercedesBenz SLK class ranked third. The so-called Yellow Angel award ceremony turned out to be a kind of VW-Porschefamily summit. VW group CEO Martin Winterkorn was accompanied by his chairman, Ferdinand Piëch, while Porsche CEO Wendelin Wiedeking was in attendance along with his chairman Wolfgang Porsche. ADAC operates a large fleet of mobile mechanics in yellow cars that assist motorists in trouble as well as 36 helicopters for urgent medical rescues – the so-called Yellow Angels. Golf still unrivalled for space An Austrian farmer is so worried about his cattle catching a cold that he regularly drives them to the vet – in his car with the heat on. Thomas Bloch’s “re-moo-val” service involves cramming young calves into his Volkswagen Golf for the trip along an Austrian highway. After the bizarre, backseat bovine arrangement was recently photographed, he said he was “acting out of love.” He didn’t want to move the animals in a conventional trailer where they would be cold. Bloch told Britain’s Sun newspaper: “They like the warm from the air conditioning – the weather is so cold at the moment – it’s not fair to take them to the vets in a trailer.” The farmer from Kufstein in Tyrol, western Austria, added: “The police stopped me but decided I wasn’t doing anything wrong – and since then that’s how I always transport my calves.” ADVERTISING GERMANY: Argelsrieder Feld 13 82234 Oberpfaffenhofen Nina Sauer, Sales and Marketing Director Tel: (49) 911 3785 432 / Fax: (49) 911 3785 433 E-mail: nsauer@craincom.de Brigitte Boehme, Sales Assistant Tel: (49) 911 3785 432 / Fax: (49) 911 3785 433 E-mail: ane@craincom.de UNITED KINGDOM, FRANCE, NORTHERN GERMANY, SCANDINAVIA, BENELUX: Filip Theys, Sales Manager Tel: (49) 221 282 4940 / Fax: (49) 221 282 3988 E-mail: ftheys@craincom.de SOUTHERN GERMANY, AUSTRIA, SWITZERLAND, CENTRAL & EASTERN EUROPE, TURKEY: Bettina Schmidt, Sales Manager Tel: (49) 8153 907505 / Fax: (49) 8153 907425 E-mail: bschmidt@craincom.de NORTH AMERICA: Taren Zorn, Sales Manager Tel: (1) 313 446-6035 / Fax: (1) 313 446-8030 E-mail: tzorn@crain.com CLASSIFIED: Annette Meiners-Langs, Sales Manager Tel: (49) 8153 907433 / Fax: (49) 8153 907425 E-mail: ameinerslangs@craincom.de Sabine McGrath, Production/Sales Support Tel: (49) 8153 907521 / Fax: (49) 8153 907425 e-mail: smcgrath@craincom.de USA: 1155 Gratiot Avenue, Detroit, MI 48207 Rick Greer, US Director of Sales and Marketing Tel: (1) 313 446-6050 / Fax: (1) 313 446-8030 John Fitzgerald: Director of Business Planning and Online Commerce Automotive News Group CIRCULATION Lauren Cialella: Circulation Manager Tel: (1) 313 446-0490 Fax: (1) 313 446-6795 E-mail: lcialella@crain.com Crain Communications GmbH: Helmut Kluger: Managing Director Printed in Germany by Augsburger Druck- und Verlagshaus, Aindlinger Str. 17-19, 86167 Augsburg, Germany. © 2009 Crain Communications GmbH. 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Automotive News Europe - March 2, 2009

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