Claus Luthe

Claus Luthe, (December 8, 1932 - March 17, 2008) was an important German car designer, responsible for the NSU Ro 80 as well as a number of Audi and BMW models. He was one of the first designers to embrace a digital approach to design, passing the designs from the design department to engineering in electronic format. Luthe was born in in 1932 Wuppertal, the second-oldest of five children in a deeply Catholic family. His father died on the Easter... more

Claus Luthe, (December 8, 1932 - March 17, 2008) was an important German car designer, responsible for the NSU Ro 80 as well as a number of Audi and BMW models. He was one of the first designers to embrace a digital approach to design, passing the designs from the design department to engineering in electronic format. Luthe was born in in 1932 Wuppertal, the second-oldest of five children in a deeply Catholic family. His father died on the Eastern Front when he was just 12 years old. Luthe originally wanted to follow his elder brother with a career in architecture, but took an apprenticeship from 1948 to 1954 as a coachbuilding student at Karosseriebauer Voll in Würzburg, where he worked on proposals for buses. After completing his apprenticeship, he joined Deutsche Fiat AG, where he was, among other activities, responsible for the frontal styling of the original 500. He soon, however, joined NSU, where he was instrumental in developing the company’s design department. Luthe’s first... less