Brands like Porsche and Ferrari make a mint every year by selling branded lifestyle goods like shoes, hats and even wilder items. Bugatti takes things to the extremes with things like Chris Bruce
Volkswagen IROC Concept - Click above for a high-res image gallery
Amidst a wave of reshuffles at several automakers' design departments recently (including Hyundai, Volvo, Ford and Noah Joseph
Following hot on the heels of reports that Volkswagen designer Derek Jenkins had defected to Mazda to head up its North American design office comes news that the Japanese automaker has replaced its global design chief, Laurens van der Acker, with Ikuo Maeda.
Our friends at AutoblogGreen recently got the chance to hear the Chief of Mazda's US design team, Franz von Holzhausen, give an insight into the design culture at Mazda. Reading his name immediately conjures the image of a sophisticated Euro stylist but the Connecticut-born designer, now based in California, looked more SoCal surfer than smug design guru.
