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Chief designer Walter de Silva out at Volkswagen

After decades of penning beautiful machines, Volkswagen Group design boss Walter de Silva will retire at the end of November but will still hold an advisory role. He has led the styling for the automotive giant's brands since 2007. The company's statement didn't announce a successor for him. De Silva began his design career at Fiat in 1972 and led styling at Alfa Romeo from 1986 to 1998. He first joined VW Group with Seat but made a big splash at Audi in 2002. His work there included the sixth-generation A6, A5, and the fantastic R8. Later, he created a great take on the classic Leica M9 camera, too. VW praised de Silva's creation of a design culture that spanned its division but still allowed for creativity within each one. "Walter de Silva epitomizes creativity and the Italian sense of beauty and style on the one hand and thoroughness, a systematic approach and discipline on the other," CEO Matthias Muller said in the announcement. De Silva's retirement could bring a major change in the way VW Group organizes its studios, according to Automotive News. The automaker reportedly wants to cut its annual styling budget and might not seek a replacement for him. Walter Maria de Silva takes retirement Head of Group Design established common design culture across all brands while retaining creative autonomy of each individual brand Walter Maria de Silva Walter Maria de Silva Walter Maria de Silva (64), Head of Group Design, is retiring with effect from the end of November. De Silva assumed design responsibility for all passenger car brands within the Volkswagen Group in February 2007. Walter de Silva will continue his links with the Group in an advisory capacity. Walter Maria de Silva was born in Lecco (Italy) on February 27, 1951 and joined the Volkswagen Group 17 years ago when he became Head of the SEAT Design Centre in 1998. He was put in charge of the design of the Audi brand group, including the brands Audi, Lamborghini and SEAT, in 2002. His new design language with Audi was epitomised by the 6th generation of the Audi A6 and Audi A5 Coupe. He was appointed Head of Group Design at Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft in 2007. Walter de Silva saw the main focus of his work as design chief in establishing and nurturing a common design culture across all brands, which nevertheless allows each brand to retain a high degree of creative autonomy.

Race Recap: 2013 Twelve Hours of Sebring, cakewalk up front, grindfest out back [w/spoilers]

This year's 12 Hours of Sebring wasn't exactly a foregone conclusion because we're still talking about racing, and anything can happen when the speeds are as high as the adrenaline and the desire. But we're still talking about Audi bringing it's two top-spec racers - and its huge budget and its nearly neurotic attention to detail - to a race that it uses as a test bed for The 24 Hours of Le Mans and as a way to open the endurance racing season with a victory.
Besides, 12 hours is a long time, especially at Sebring, and things didn't go all Audi's way. On top of that, although it was a pretty quiet race, behind the Audis things got even grimier, with plenty of battles, plenty of mechanical issues, and the new BMW Z4 GTE and Viper GTS-R being race tested. Oh, and that brand new chromed-out DeltaWing...

Audi's next R8 snapped running the 'Ring nearly naked

Following the debut of the Lamborghini Huracán, work is now well well under way on its cousin. That, of course, would be the next-generation Audi R8, the followup to the model that put Ingolstadt on the supercar map in 2006 and has been on the market ever since. That's an eight-year lifespan, though to be fair, for 2014 it has gotten a pretty meaningful update. Still, that's a long lifecycle, even if the Gallardo with which it shares its underpinnings was around even longer. In other words, it's about due for replacement.
Fortunately, that's just what Audi has in the cards. We've seen prototypes wearing heavy camouflage lapping the Nürburgring a couple of times over the past few weeks, but now it's been snapped nearly completely undisguised, with largely bare black bodywork giving us an even better look at what to anticipate.
So what are we looking at here? A sharper-looking take on the existing design, for starters, so onlookers and customers alike shouldn't have any trouble identifying this as an R8 - but a newer one at that. It seems to take some cues from the new TT, particularly around the headlights, with more squared-off elements throughout. There's an adaptive rear wing poking out the back and more pronounced side-blade intakes between the doors and the rear wheels, which themselves are wearing ultra low-profile rubber.