Murat Günak

Murat Günak (* 9. August 1957 in Istanbul ) is a German designer of Turkish origin and was from 2004 to January 2007 Head of Volkswagen - design department . Today he is dedicated to the topic of electromobility .

Life

Murat Günak grew up as the son of a specialist in Turkey and came to Germany at the age of eight. He attended high schools in Hückelhoven and Warburg . He then studied design at the Kunsthochschule Kassel and obtained a “Master of Automotive Design” from the Royal College of Art in London .

Soon after completing his training, Günak advanced to become one of the most sought-after automotive designers in Germany. He made his breakthrough as a well-known figure in car design with the drawing of the first Mercedes C-Class ( W202 ) as the successor to the 190 model ( W201 ). For example, he also drew the round headlights that were installed in many Mercedes model series from 1995. He was also jointly responsible for the first Mercedes SLK and the design of the Maybach 57 and 62 models. He also played a key role in the design of the SLR and CLS models .

For Peugeot he designed the Peugeot 206 CC, Peugeot 307 and Peugeot 607 models .

In 2004 he became head of the design department at Volkswagen AG . His goal at VW was to "emotionalize" the design of the Volkswagen brand. Among other things, he introduced the large-scale chrome decoration on the radiator grille and front bumper of some models, including the round LED rear lights used across all models. He played a key role in the study of a successor model for the VW Scirocco , presented as VW Iroc at numerous auto shows , and was in charge of the design of the VW Golf V , VW Eos and VW Tiguan . He also gave the VW Touareg and Touran models a facelift. He also worked for the group subsidiaries Škoda and Bentley. As part of the restructuring of the corporate management at VW, he was followed in January 2007 by the former chief designer of Alfa Romeo , Audi with Lamborghini and Seat , Walter de Silva , who had previously worked under Günak's direction. The designs already completed under Günak for the Golf VI , Passat and Scirocco models coming from 2008 were partially redesigned under de Silva. From July 2007 to 2009, Günak performed the role of CEO of Mindset AG on a mandate basis through his MGMO GmbH in Lucerne . This was planning to bring a compact hybrid car with the name "mindset" on the market, but the development largely broke off in 2009 due to financial problems.

In the years 2010-2013 Günak was Managing Director of mia electric GmbH for the development of electric cars mia responsible.

He then continued to work on the idea of promoting electric mobility in Germany as well. Together with a vehicle engineer and a business economist , Günak founded the Onomotion company based in Berlin in 2016 . At the end of 2018 they succeeded the idea of transport - pedelec that will revolutionize the delivery traffic (especially the "first and last mile") in major cities by using a Lieferwechselbox long term.