Hyundai Motor Group has announced that its chief design officer, Luc Donckerwolke, has resigned for personal reasons. The company did not provide specific reasons or details about his resignation, Yonhap News Agency reports.
In 2015, Donckerwolke was appointed to join the South Korean automaker to work on the company’s Genesis luxury sub-brand, and was later appointed as head of Hyundai Design Center. In October 2018, he was promoted to the role of overseeing the design direction and strategy of its Hyundai, Kia and Genesis brands, replacing Peter Schreyer.
Prior to his tenure at Hyundai, the 54-year old Belgian designer was the styling chief at Bentley. He has also had stints in a number of Volkswagen Group companies, including Audi, where he was responsible for the original TT and R8 Le Mans Racer. He was also design head at Lamborghini, where he oversaw the design of the Murcielago and Gallardo, and was also head of design at SEAT.
“The group’s audacious and progressive attitude has allowed me to push the boundaries and challenge the status quo. I have enjoyed the trust given to me by the group to create a design ‘dream team’ that has defined a DNA for the future of these brands and digitalidation of their design processes,” Donckerwolke said in a statement.
A company spokesman said that SangYup Lee, who joined the company in 2016 and is currently head of Hyundai Design Center, and Karim Habib, head of Kia Design Center, will jointly take over the role in shaping Hyundai, Genesis and Kia’s future design direction and innovation.
Oh no, after this Hyundai will revert their car design back to ugly one :-(
Hyundai cars RV kept dropping, he must go.
He probably got overruled again and again by company execs who each thought it was a good idea to mash in design elements from various brands, so he finally got sick and fired himself.
Resignation accepted. He should have resigned earlier as the latest Hyundai car designs were getting uglier. Except the new Sanfa Fe is styling, the new Sonata and Elantra is really ugly and awful design.
Choose a colour picture lah, he hasn’t die just resign.
I get what you mean, but unfortunately that’s the only photo of him in Hyundai’s press site.
Hyundai’s way of saying he is dead to them?
Luc Donckerwolke, designer the next Satria Gti?
black white pic ingat sudah jalan
Dear geely or proton, hire him now!
Why? Peter Horbury’s designs are so much better.
RIP…oh wait
no wonder the latest hyundai elantra grille is super ugly…thanks to this fella design
No worries…….With such great talent, he will surely be hiredand succeed. China willing to pay top dollars, as their car biz is growing.