Aston Martins Could Start Looking A Lot More Like Bugattis Thanks To This Guy

Meet Tobias Sühlmann. He’s Aston Martin’s new head of exterior design. But you’ve seen his work elsewhere.

The German designer worked for Mercedes and PSA earlier in his career. He’s spent the last dozen years in the design studios of the Volkswagen Group, where he helped design the Arteon sedan and the latest Touareg sport-ute. And most recently, he lead creative development in exterior design at Bugatti.

Now he’s moved to Aston Martin as chief exterior designer. Which is probably just as well for Sühlmann, considering that (as Motor1 points out) Bugatti only makes one product, and it was designed long before he got there.

Aston Martin, on the other hand, has a whole raft of new models in the pipeline. It recently introduced the new DB11 and Vantage, but those are just the tip of the spear. It’ll soon be rolling out a new DBS, its first crossover, and a new line of Lagonda models.

That’s to say nothing of the various iterations of those new models that are destined to follow. And it has new mid-engined supercars on the way: the Valkyrie, of course, but also another to slot in underneath it. And those are just the projects we know about.

In his new job, Sühlmann will report to Miles Nürnburger, who has now been promoted from the exterior-design post to that of design director. They both report to Marek Reichman, who continues as the company’s chief creative officer. Reichman has been leading a design revolution at Aston Martin, which has left behind its old design language for an entirely new one.