Claus Luthe

On his death in 2008, The Guardian called Luthe "one of the most important figures in postwar European car styling."

He then supervised the design of the E36 3 Series, and by 1990 he was named the head of BMW’s design department, supervising the creation of the 1989 E31 8 Series coupe, and the third-generation E34 5 Series.

Luthe was married with four children. He left his post at BMW after being accused of fatally stabbing his 33-year-old, chronically drug-dependent oldest son, Ulrich after an argument on Good Friday in 1990. He was eventually convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 33 months in prison, but was released before having to serve the complete sentence. He later worked as an external consultant for BMW.

In 1976 Luthe succeeded Paul Bracq as chief designer with BMW, and began to move the Bavarian manufacturer's designs in a more creative, stylish direction. At the time, the company offered a full line of products, from the E21 3 Series to the E23 7 Series, all with relatively conservative designs developed under Bracq's direction.

The K70 was originally created by Luthe as the NSU K70, to fill the gap between the Prinz and the Ro 80, but came to the market in 1971 as a Volkswagen K70, after considerable delays, partly due to the Volkswagen acquisition of NSU, and with modifications to Luthe's original design.

Following the takeover of NSU by Volkswagen, Luthe continued to work for Audi from 1971 to 1976. His first project at Audi was the Audi 50, on which the original Volkswagen Polo was based. Luthe completed the styling of the tidy three-door hatchback design, as well as guiding the interior design; the concept of the dashboard design is remarkably similar to that proposed by Luthe (but rejected by the NSU management) in the original Ro 80 prototypes. While the Bertone design house was consulted on the near-final design, only modifying a few small details, such as the upsweep of the chrome trim on the side. The 50 was introduced in August 1974, just three months after the debut of the Volkswagen Golf.

In late 1967, when the remarkable new Ro 80 was introduced at the Frankfurt Motor Show, it did not initially gain universal acceptance for its unconventional wedge-like design. However, sales proved to be strong, and by the spring of 1969, there were still waiting lists for the car. Unfortunately the early engines suffered from heavy wear of the rotor tip seals in the innovative Wankel engine, causing severe financial losses for NSU. 37,204 Ro 80s were built by the time production finally ceased in 1977, but by that time the company had long been part of Audi, a Volkswagen subsidiary.

With the growth of the German economy, NSU was interested in offering larger cars to the growing middle class, and in 1962 NSU president Gerd Stieler von Heydekampf authorized the development of a mid-sized front-wheel drive sedan, using the company's revolutionary new Wankel engine technology. Chief engineer Ewald Praxl was given the assignment to develop the car, originally envisaged at 800 kg and 80 hp, starting from a clean sheet.

The Prinz had a distinct resemblance to its contemporary Chevrolet Corvair; the original design had already been finalized when BMW launched its new 700 model in 1959, with a very similar design. NSU management decided that changes were needed, and an NSU board member who had just returned from the United States described the Corvair design to Luthe, who incorporated some of the elements into the Prinz's bathtub design.

Claus Luthe (December 8, 1932 – March 17, 2008) was a German car designer, noted for his design work on the NSU Ro 80, Volkswagen K70 and numerous seminal models from Audi and BMW. Luthe was a pioneer of aerodynamics and digital design within the automotive field.

Luthe was born in 1932 in 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 into 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.