If you are unsure who Jenkins is, take a look on the streets. If you seen a Volkswagen Scirocco passing by, you should now that the car is wearing Jenkins' signature. The 39-year old designer, who has been working for Volkswagen since 2000, will come to Mazda to take the place of Franz von Holzhausen, who left Mazda last summer to join the new wonder automaker, Tesla Motors.
"Derek's intimate knowledge and understanding of the North American market, combined with his wealth of experience after having spent 15 successful years at VW and Audi, are going to be a tremendous asset for the Mazda Design team," Robert Davis, head of Mazda product development and quality in North America told the source.
Jenkins will work at Mazda Design Americas in Irvine, California and will head a staff of 25 people. The designer of Audi A2 city car and the Audi A8, will work with Ikuo Maeda, responsible for the design of all Mazda models around the world.
The Irvine center in California is the birth place of the redesigned 2010 Mazda 3, the 2009 Mazda 6 and the Kabura, Nagare and Furai concept cars, some of the vehicles through which the Japanese manufacturer plans on maintaining the good figures obtained in the past fiscal year.
Despite the economic crisis, Mazda keeps its hopes up, especially after reporting it had, in the 2008-2009 timeframe, its second best fiscal year, with a retail volume of 324,600 units.
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