Dr. Ulrich Bez (b. November 1943 in Bad Cannstatt, Germany) is a German-businessman and currently CEO of Aston Martin motorcars.
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He holds a doctorate in engineering from the University of Stuttgart. Throughout his career he has been responsible for product design and development at Porsche, BMW and Daewoo Motor.
While at Porsche, he led Vehicle Research and Development and motor sport programmes in Formula One and World Endurance Championship in Indianapolis and Le Mans. He directed design and development of the 911 Turbo, the Carrera RS 2.7, the 968 and the 993.
Dr. Bez was the first director of BMW Technik GmbH (BMW Technology), responsible for the design of BMW Z1.
At Daewoo Motor, Ulrich Bez was Vice President of Engineering (1993–1998), involved with the development of the series of models such as the Daewoo Matiz, Daewoo Lanos, Daewoo Leganza and the Daewoo Nubira.
Before he became the Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of Aston Martin Lagonda Ltd. in July 2000, he also was a business advisor to the Ford Motor Company. He agreed to a five-year contract, with the sale of Aston Martin, by Ford to a consortium led David Richards, and John Sinders.[1]
Dr. Bez is also a keen racing driver and in the 24 Hours Nürburgring endurance race achieved 24th place in 2006, 126th place in 2007, 27th place in 2008 (all in an Aston Martin Vantage N24),[2] and 21st place in the 2009 race (the race debut of the Aston Martin V12 Vantage).[3] [4] He has also run the 1959 24 Hours of Le Mans winning Aston Martin DBR1 in the Le Mans Legend race.