>picrel Ferdinand Piech, responsible for leading the projects for the Bugatti Veyron, VW Phaeton, W8, V10 and Audi V12 TDI projects>Piëch has been described as being socially awkward and having an abrasive personality; some automotive journalists who have encountered Piëch described him as being uncomfortable to be around.>"Many of his CEO peers said they could not hold a normal conversation with him. Discussions could be punctuated with long stretches of unexplained silence.>Piëch was known as an aggressive and demanding manager, who set both lofty and extremely specific goals and standards for projects. He would often become personally involved in vehicle development, such as how he oversaw the development of the Audi 100's aerodynamics himself, keeping it secret from even Audi's top engineers to prevent any crucial details of the car's aerodynamic capabilities from leaking to competitors.>As Piëch rose to the top of Volkswagen in the late 1980s and early 1990s, then-CEO Carl Hahn took notice of Piëch's poor social skills and tried to position him as a technocrat kept behind closed doors.Hahn was particularly bothered by how Piëch behaved during a visit to the Yasukuni Shrine; while a Shinto priest was showing the shrine's collection of vintage swords, Piëch examined one and told the priest that it was a fake Subsequently, Hahn presented the Audi Avus quattro concept car himself at the 1991 Tokyo Motor Show and didn't allow Piëch to take part, which infuriated Piëch due to his extensive personal involvement in the Avus quattro's creation.
>>29139197>>iëch often liked to ride along with automotive journalists during press test drives and would consider their critiques to improve Volkswagen's vehicles. Car and Driver writer John Phillips recounted how when he test drove the Volkswagen New Beetle during its launch in 1997, Piëch rode along and asked for his opinion on how its chassis and driving dynamics could be improved.Similarly, Piëch once demanded that an Automobile reviewer take the Volkswagen Phaeton up to its top speed while he rode along in the back seat.>Piëch often spearheaded the development of audacious vehicles or oversaw business decision and strategies that baffled analysts, but still proved beneficial for the company as a whole.In recounting some of the extraordinary vehicles Volkswagen put in production under Piëch's watch, Wired noted that he alone pushed the Bugatti Veyron supercar into production, despite objection from other executives as well as the fact that Volkswagen lost what is believed to be millions on every Veyron sold:"Consider that for a moment. Long past the average retirement age, this gent greenlit one of the largest automotive losses in history and managed to keep his job. Moreover, he was hailed as a hero."
>>29139198>In 2014, fellow automotive executive Bob Lutz recounted a conversation he had with Piëch at the Frankfurt Auto Show in the early 1990s, in which he remarked how he was impressed with the fit and finish and tight body tolerances on Volkswagen's new models. Piëch told Lutz that he achieved this by assembling Volkswagen's top body engineers in his office and telling them they would all be fired if all of Volkswagen's vehicles didn't have body tolerances of 3 millimeters within six weeks.
>>29139197Sounds like he browses here.
>>29139197>>29139198>>29139200Why didn't he make VW's cars reliable? the VW pheaton, the W8 engine, the V10 and V12 TDI projects were all rube goldberg machinery.
>>29139197Autists who spend all there time on there craft are miracles.
>>29139228it's because he was autistic and German, he assumed that anyone buying those cars would autistically maintain them to factory new standards.
>>29139228Shoulda bring it to top speed every month as he envisioned
>>29139197>>29139198>>29139200He wasn't an autist, he was just an unbelievebly stubborn and dour son of a bitch. He was raised in a literal slave labour factory that his father ran before he died during the war while his cousins on the Porsche side lived in luxury and mocked him for being a Piëch. His entire career was basically just him trying to outperform and usurp company and industry power from his Porsche side of the family out of spite.
>>29139393Are German family feuds really this? >You're team Volkswagen and I'm team Porsche and you're gay and stupid while I'm rich and hot
>>29139397If you want to go full /x/ with it, the guy who signed off on diesel gate was a husband to one of Ferdinand's cousins, and in private Ferdinand suspected that the guy was conspiring with his Porsche wife to tarnish Piëch's name with the scandal. Why? Well one of Piëchs biggest obsessions and pet projects during his career was to make diesel engines viable for production cars, and of course diesel gate tainted that for the US market.
>>29139400That's funny as fuck. Imagine the whole automotive industry getting fucked over because of a petty autistic family cockmeasuring feud. Germans never cease to amaze me.
