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Lamborghini Brand and Design Director steps down

According to well-placed sources within the automotive design community, Car Design News has learned that Manfred Fitzgerald, Brand and Design Director at Lamborghini, has been asked to leave the company. It is presumed his role with the company's design aspects will likely be absorbed by current Audi Group Head of Design Wolfgang Egger. Fitzgerald had been working at Lamborghini since 1999, shortly after the sports car maker was bought by parent company Volkswagen through Audi AG.

Lorenzo Ramaciotti visits RCA for 'Two of a Kind' project

Lorenzo Ramaciotti, Fiat-Chrysler's head of global design, has visited the Royal College of Art as part of the Fiat ‘Two of a Kind' project explaining how Italian design has become world-famous in all fields in a talk themed ‘The Roots of Italian Car Design'. The ‘Two of a Kind' project asks four teams of four Vehicle Design students to design innovative exterior and interior proposals for how the Fiat 500 and the Panda might look in 2020, taking interactivity, digital interface, sustainability and global appeal into account. Maserati brought along a Quattroporte, a GranTurismo Sport as well as an Alfa Giulietta Sportiva to complement his talk in the hope it would encourage students to consider what the carmaker believes are the three concepts of the legacy of Italian car design: sportiness-dynamism; elegance-balance; and character-personality.

General Motors names Ewanick global chief marketing officer

General Motors, looking to accelerate its push into major markets worldwide, tapped U.S. marketing chief Joel Ewanick to become global chief marketing officer--a new post. "As we continue our rapid growth in major global markets, it is important that we take a more customer-focused view of our overall marketing strategy," GM CEO Dan Akerson said in a statement today.