Wolfgang Egger has left Ital Design, Auto World News has learned from several sources. At the company's holiday party last week, he bid farewell to the company.
The 51-year-old Bavarian took over at the helm of the Italian design house in February 2014. He joined Ital Design after a tenure as Audi's chief designer beginning in 2007, and was also responsible assumed operational responsibility starting in February 2012. At Audi, Egger tried to reimagine the company's design language, and many of his ideas came to life as the brand's most notable concept cars of the last decade, including the Crosslane and the Nanuk (pictured above).
At the same time, Egger set out to restructure the design department - an undertaking that caused considerable friction within the company.
At Ital Design, Egger worked on concept cars like the Clipper, launched in March 2014 in Geneva. He was also expected to submit alternative proposals for many of the Volkswagen Group's important models. He started his career at Alfa Romeo. After a stint at SEAT, he returned to the Fiat Group—first to Lancia, then again to Alfa Romeo—before current VW Group design chief Walter de'Silva hired him to join Audi.
It's unclear where Egger is going next, but the historic design powerhouse will endure. Ital Design was founded by design legend Giorgio Giugiaro in 1968, and Giugiaro's styling language shaped global automotive design throughout the 1970s and 1980s. In August 2010, the Volkswagen Group took over 90.1 percent of the design and prototyping house.
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