Dirk van Braeckel (born February 19, 1958 in Deinze),[1] is a Belgian car designer, currently head of design at Bentley Motors. He is married to Hanna and has one daughter.[2]
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Born in Deinze,[1] after leaving school, van Braeckel studied electrical engineering,[3] before joining Ford as an apprentice car designer in Cologne, West Germany.[1] Ford then agreed to sponsor him undertake a degree in car design at the Royal College of Art, London.[4]
On graduation, he joined Audi in 1984, working on external design[1] including the Audi A8 concept and Audi A3.[5] In 1993, Volkswagen Group boss Ferdinand Piech personally choose him to head design for VW's newly purchased Škoda Auto division, where he revised the entire model line-up,[4] creating the Octavia and Fabia models.[1]
After Volkswagen purchased Bentley in 1998 from Vickers plc, van Braeckel joined the British based company in August 1999 as Director of Design & Styling. His brief was to create a second-car line that could sell in higher volumes than the $240,000 Bentley Arnage car. Van Braeckel created the Bentley Continental GT, which in 2004 sold 5,983 units, exceeding forecasts by 62%,[4] and in 2009 his Bentley Mulsanne was launched.[6]
In 2007, van Braeckel was awarded the laureate of Antwerp's Christophe Plantin Prize, which honours Belgian citizens whose cultural, artistic or scientific activities contribute to the country's prestige abroad.[3] In 2008, van Braeckel was awarded the European Automotive Design Award by Designers (Europe).[1]