Portrait Porsche's Head of Design Sühlmann: Preferring Sports Cars to SUVs

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Tobias Sühlmann is the fifth chief designer in Porsche's history. He comes from McLaren—and was responsible for other super sports cars.

The news came as a complete surprise to many. After 22 years as head designer in Zuffenhausen (Germany), Michael Mauer was dismissed at the end of January. Since taking up his post in 2004, he had been responsible for numerous important vehicles for the brand, including the redesign of the Cayenne SUV model, the slightly smaller Macan SUV, the four-door Porsche Panamera, the 918 Spyder super sports car and the Porsche Taycan, Porsche's first electric car.

Mauer's successor is 46-year-old Tobias Sühlmann. He comes from the British sports car brand McLaren, just like the new Porsche boss Michael Leiters, who moved into the executive chair at Porsche at the turn of the year.

Focus on Sports Cars

The words with which the new Porsche CEO welcomed the new Chief Designer at the end of January are striking: "Tobias Sühlmann can build on a unique design philosophy. With his experience in the design of sports and super sports cars, he will further sharpen Porsche's profile." Full focus on the sporty models in the choice of the fifth designer in Porsche's history.

That is quite interesting. After all, it is no longer sports cars that play the most important role at Porsche, but SUVs. However, the Macan and Cayenne models, currently the brand's two best-selling model series, have just been revised by predecessor Mauer.

Last Model at McLaren Cost 4,740,000 USD 

Sühlmann will probably be pleased that the SUV work has been completed for the time being. After all, he has been responsible for some particularly fast models in his career to date. At McLaren, his last stop before moving to Porsche in February 2026, the Solus GT is considered his most important work: a single-seater super sports car with a ten-cylinder V-engine and 840 hp.

McLaren only delivered 25 units at a price of around  4,740,000 USD each: with a sliding glass cockpit and a custom-made individual seat—designer Sühlmann was able to let off steam as much as he wanted with the project.

In his career, which began after his studies at Pforzheim University (Germany), Sühlmann turned out to be a man for the particularly exclusive. After several years at Volkswagen, he was Head of Exterior Design at the luxury brand Bugatti from 2017. He then moved to the British luxury brand Aston Martin. Among other things, he was responsible for the exterior design of the Valhalla super sports car, which is limited to 999 units and can be seen in the James Bond adventure "No Time to Die".

He was also involved in a number of study vehicles, such as the Lagonda All Terrain Concept SUV model and the Vanquish Vision Concept, which was designed as a challenger to the Ferrari 296 GTB.

Good Network Within the Group

The Aston Martin adventure came to an end for Sühlmann, but he remained loyal to Great Britain. After an initial, brief interlude at McLaren, he was drawn to the VW Group brand for particularly luxurious vehicles: Bentley. From 2021, he worked there under the current VW Chief Designer Andreas Mindt, until Mindt took up his new job in Wolfsburg (Germany) and Sühlmann replaced him as head of the Bentley design team of around 50 people. Sühlmann therefore knows Porsche boss Michael Leiters from their time together at McLaren, and he is familiar with the currently most important designer in the VW Group.

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At Bentley, Mindt and Sühlmann have jointly created the Mulliner Batur luxury coupé. They left very little of the Continental GT on which the model, limited to 18 units, is based. The round headlights typical of Bentley were transformed into narrow headlights reminiscent of the human eye. The rear lights were narrowed into slits.

As the lead exterior designer, Sühlmann also deviated from the typical Bentley style with strikingly wide wheel arches and the continuous shoulder line. The design will now serve as a template for Bentley's future battery-electric vehicles.

Probably Not An Electric 911 from Sühlmann

It is questionable whether Sühlmann will also benefit from this kind of electric style at his new employer. After all, those responsible at Porsche are now skeptical about the original electrification plans for the Cayman and Boxster model series, which are due to be revised shortly. An electric 911 under the pen of Sühlmann is probably even more difficult to imagine at present.

At Porsche—in contrast to his previous positions as the designer in charge—Sühlmann's task is now not to cater to the tastes of the less affluent with sensational one-offs or small series vehicles. Now he has to create cars for a broader customer base. After all, Porsche model series such as the Macan and the 911 each sell more than all vehicles from Aston Martin, Bentley and McLaren put together.

Responsible for the Exterior of the VW Arteon

The good news is that Sühlmann is not entirely new to these areas of the automotive industry. After all, he worked as a designer at VW before moving to the British luxury brands. Among other things, he was responsible for the exterior of the VW Arteon, which was presented in 2017—and with which VW tried to appeal to a style-conscious clientele for whom a VW Passat was too arbitrarily designed.

Sühlmann was also involved in the design of the third generation of the VW Touareg, which has been in production since 2018. Production of the Arteon has already been discontinued and the Touareg will be phased out this year. One thing is clear: Sühlmann's designs will have to find favor with the tradition-conscious Porsche brand for some time to come.

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