Designing small cars is more difficult than hypercars

A step from Bentley’s design department to Volkswagen’s. Is that a promotion or a demotion? You can decide that yourself. Anyway, Andreas Mindt now works for Volkswagen, but before that he was the design boss at Bentley. The funny thing is that he thinks designing Bentleys is easier than designing small cars at Volkswagen.

“When I worked at Bentley it was an easy job. I did the Batur, based on the Continental GT, and it was great. It’s very easy to do because it’s low, wide and has a long bonnet. It’s easy. It’s like taking a penalty in soccer without a goalkeeper,” Mindt told TopGear at the presentation of the Volkswagen ID.2all.

Designing a small car is more difficult than a hypercar

The electric VW is Mindt’s first work for Volkswagen since taking over from Jozef Kabaň. “To make a small car like the id.2 all you have to work hard and people don’t understand that,” says Mindt.

We can imagine that for Batur – where it doesn’t matter how expensive and how inconvenient it may be – you should pay less attention to the needs and wishes of other departments. ID.2 must meet certain specifications and remain below a certain price, but still be usable.

The former Bentley designer has a lot of respect for small car designers: ‘If you look at things like the Fiat Panda, I think they’re brilliant designers, not big car makers. I don’t want to hurt anyone, but I know both sides.’