Europe's largest carmaker, the Volkswagen Group, completed the acquisition of Italdesign Giugiaro S.p.A. (IDG) on Monday and now holds a 90.1 percent stake in the Italian design and engineering firm as well as the company's brand name rights and patents. The German automaker said the shareholding has been purchased by Audi's Italian subsidiary Lamborghini with the remaining stake held by present owner family Giugiaro.
"Italdesign has now become a permanent member of the Volkswagen Group. Given the full order books and numerous interesting projects, the perspectives are better than ever," said Martin Winterkorn, VW's chief executive. "In view of our ongoing model initiative and the associated development and design assignments, we will be expanding Italdesign's highly-motivated and productive team," Winterkorn added.
The German firm appointed Gerhard Willner (49), who currently heads concept development at the Volkswagen Passenger Cars brand in Wolfsburg, and Salvatore Cieri (53), current member of the Board of Directors responsible for Administration, Finance and Controlling at Lamborghini, to the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors of IDG that will continue to be led by Giorgetto Giugiaro.
The Italian design consultancy was established in 1968 by Giorgetto Giugiaro and Aldo Mantovani and has created a great number of vehicles for the VW Group over the years including the first generation of the Golf and many concept models such as the first Volkswagen Passat, Scirocco and the Audi 80.
Italdesign was also responsible the design of many Fiat Group vehicles including the Fiat Punto and Grande Punto, and the Alfa Romeo 156 /159 and Brera.
