Ferdinand Piëch Ferdinand Piëch Ferdinand Karl Piëch (born 17 April 1937) is an Austrian business magnate, engineer and executive who was the chairman of the executive board ("Vorstandsvorsitzender") of Volkswagen Group in 1993-2002 and the chairman of the supervisory board ("Aufsichtsratsvorsitzender") of Volkswagen Group in 2002-2015. A grandson of Ferdinand Porsche, Piëch started his career at Porsche, before leaving for Audi after an agreement that no member of the Porsche or Piëch families should be involved in the day-to-day operations of the Porsche company. Piëch eventually became the head of Audi, where he is credited with evolving and growing Audi into a
Volkswagen Beetle British patent 'Improvements related to road vehicles', granted GB570814, July 24, 1945, describing a 2-door, rear-engined car, identical in arrangement and look to VW 'Kafer'. It has also been pointed out that the VW Beetle bears a striking resemblance to John Tjaarda's 1933 design for a streamlined, rear-engined car, that he created working for Briggs Manufacturing Company. At Briggs, a Detroit-based manufacturer of automobile bodies for Ford Motor Company, Chrysler Corporation and other U.S. and European automobile manufacturers, Tjaarda was developing a radical car for Ford to use as a new Lincoln. Ford displayed the show car at the 1933-34