People
Automotive designer and former Bugatti Director of Design
Maxim
The record
German designer who led Bugatti design from 2004 to 2023. The register credits him as design director of the Divo and the W16 Mistral. He retired after nineteen years and was retained as an adviser to Bugatti Rimac.
Born in Stuttgart on 30 July 1962, Anscheidt is the son of Hans-Georg Anscheidt, who won three consecutive FIM 50 cc titles for Suzuki from 1966 to 1968. He entered motorcycle trials at twelve, won a German junior championship, and worked as a stunt acrobat into his early twenties. After starting automotive design at Pforzheim he met Porsche design chief Harm Lagaaij, who arranged a scholarship to ArtCenter in Pasadena. He graduated in 1993 and joined Porsche's Style Center in Weissach as a junior designer.
Three years later he was chosen to lead Volkswagen Group advanced-design operations in Barcelona and Berlin. Porsche later recorded eight years at Volkswagen in Sitges. In 2004 he became Bugatti Design Director, when the Veyron's design was mostly finalized. Under his guidance the Grand Sport Vitesse, Super Sport, L'Or Blanc, Hermès edition and Legend Editions developed the modern portfolio.
He defined recurring Bugatti cues — horseshoe grille, two-tone split, side Bugatti Line and a centre line recalling the Type 57 SC Atlantic — and a method he called form follows performance. On the 2018 Divo he said the brief was a car that looked different from the Chiron yet remained a Bugatti. The team redistributed the proportions so the body would read as lighter and more agile, treating every visible element as an aerodynamic part.
The W16 Mistral, Bugatti's last roadgoing W16, was unveiled in 2022. Anscheidt said the team drew on the 1934 Type 57 Roadster Grand Raid, turning its dual headrests into roof scoops that also serve as rollover structures. He retired as Director of Design in 2023 after nineteen years; Frank Heyl succeeded him. Mate Rimac had asked him in 2021 to stay three more years to finish the Chiron successor, later named Tourbillon, and Bugatti said he would remain an adviser.
On the Divo, Anscheidt said every visible component has a genuine aerodynamic reference. The team redistributed the proportions so the car would read as lighter and more agile than the Chiron, developing the body with engineering rather than after it.
He required the Divo to keep the horseshoe grille, the side signature line and the Atlantic-derived centre fin, so that a coachbuilt Chiron derivative would still read as a Bugatti.
On the W16 Mistral he used the 1934 Type 57 Roadster Grand Raid as the muse: dual headrests became roof-mounted engine scoops that also pass rollover tests as carbon structures. The scoops sit behind the occupants and feed the last roadgoing W16.
The stations
The house
Credited through Bugatti.
In the register
The files above are the register's own record of this name. The people index holds everyone the register credits.
In their words
“Because at Bugatti, the form follows the performance.”
Achim Anscheidt · Bugatti Newsroom, 2019
