Volkswagen design boss: 'why be aggressive? Be the nice guys'

With manufacturers looking to diversify and cement their identities in the electric era leading to significant changes in vehicle styling, it’s a pretty exciting time to be a car designer. But one brand which has maintained a relatively safe approach is Volkswagen, with Andy Mindt (AM), head of design, and Christian Schreiber (CS), head of design strategy, being the two chaps largely responsible for that.

We recently caught up with the pair to discuss just how their approach could change moving forward, and given just how proud Volkswagen is of its identity, what factors could be retained and repurposed in the cleaner, greener car world.

TopGear.com: How will you balance the past with the future?

CS: We will connect directly with Volkswagen’s heritage, beginning with the ID.2all. We feel it was important to give this car a stable, likeable look so we could help the core of the brand stand-out more for customers.

AM: I believe most people don’t want to be the coolest or appear aggressive in public. They want to have a suit and a good outside appearance while being happy and optimistic. What is the need to be aggressive? Our core is like this: be the nice guys.

Why should customers be excited? 

CS: There’s one motto we like to follow as we head into the future: make people’s lives easier. We want to do this by making technology more accessible, but at the same time making sure we improve people’s experiences for it. We want to avoid making things complicated for them. 

Talk us through the future of the Golf GTI, and how you’ll try to keep it appealing.

AM: There are three brands here: Volkswagen, Golf and GTI. We’ve got to make sure all three characters are there. The bigger wheels, the wider track and the slim body; these are architectural things we want to apply moving forward, starting with the ID.2. I think that can be transferred to the electric world without any problem.

CS: If I see a Mk1 and then a Mk8, I can still see the Golf. And this is what we have to protect, and we understand that really well. It’s huge fun to work on the GTI, but it’s also a challenge because you need to be innovative. You need to remember the challenges in your hand and make sure it remains recognisable.

How hard is it to take an older design and modernise it, like you did with the ID.Buzz?

AM: It was quite easy to do it, because we knew what we had, we knew exactly what we wanted to achieve, and we wanted to create a modern version of that. The shape is recognisable, so it would’ve been stupid of us not to use it.

CS: The electric platform helped a lot, since modern safety regulations mean cars are bigger. There’s no front engine any more and the platform sits underneath, so it was really simple. It also meant we could create more exits and generally improve on the Camper idea.

Is bringing an iconic car back a good or bad headache?

CS: What makes it exciting for me, as someone who came from Bentley to Volkswagen, is that I get to design a car for me and my family. It makes me proud. We’re not just getting a task to design a car for someone, we’re getting a task to design a car for us. This is what makes projects like this exciting. 

How about the bits inside your cars, what differences can we expect here? 

CS: When you open the door on a Bentley, it’s big and bold architecture, very strong luxury. When you open the door of a Volkswagen it needs to be simple and usable, and not overly decorated. This should be the same once you use the car; it’s meant to work with you and not make things more complicated. It needs to also play with all the touchpoints you have in life. 

There will be Easter eggs from cars of the past. For example we’ll have certain patterns, specifically for GTI models, and we are very protective about things like this so we won’t use them on other models. 

AM: We’re going to try and kick out cheap plastic materials and put the money instead into fabrics and improving quality, which helps save money and means we can use it elsewhere. An example could be a door card that’s made of three pieces. We’ll try instead to design it using one island in the middle. There’ll still be a door handle and arm rest as before, but it’ll all be built from one piece. It also makes the whole process more sustainable.

How regularly is Volkswagen planning to release products?

AM: We’ve renewed our ICE program now with the T1 and the Passat to help increase our portfolio a bit, and of course we’ve also got a few EVs on the lower end coming and pre-existing refreshes. From 2026, every three months we’ll have something new. 

CS: We do listen to our community too, we’re not so arrogant and think only we get to decide what happens. If there’s enough demand or interest for something from outside, that definitely has a lever on things.