THE CAR INQUISITION
Meet enthusiasm whirlwind Andreas Mindt, Bentley design director, salt-flat racer, motorcyclist, philosopher and the man shaping Crewe’s EV future.
Andreas Mindt is one of the most enthusiastic human beings you could wish to meet. But this engag-ing conversationalist also loves to lis-ten. For him, listening is life’s secret sauce. It’s a theme that recurs time and again as we talk in California, the day after the unveiling of his first Bentley, the Batur.
Mindt was appointed design di-rector in March 2021, replacing Ste-fan Sielaff. But Mindt, the son of a car designing father who worked for Opel and VW, is no stranger to Bent-ley: he created the brand’s talismanic first post-Rolls-Royce concept, the Hunaudières, when he was still a twenty-something whippersnapper.
Now that Bentley’s his gig, Mindt’s thrown himself into the brand, hun-gry to buff his already deep-rooted understanding of what makes it spe-cial – and how it must evolve as it embraces an electrified and more sustainable future. How? By listen-ing – and by buying an Arnage…
‘I learned a long time ago the im-portance of listening,’ he says. ‘You need to listen so that you really un-derstand the brand, and you need to listen to your customers. At Bentley this is special because you can do this in person.’ (Mindt spent the previous evening chatting with clients, in-cluding several Batur buyers.)
‘My understanding of Bentley is always improving – it changed even yesterday! You really need to be open-minded in this job: the world is always changing. I’m always im-pressed with David Bowie. He changed throughout his career; he adapted. I don’t wanna be a one-hit wonder. I wanna be David Bowie!’
And that Arnage? ‘You learn Bent-ley all the time when you drive one, especially a 20-year-old car! I always liked the Arnage [the 1998-2009 V8 saloon], and when you drive the car, and then you work on the clay [mod-el] or you’re sketching, you’re inspired by that. I want to go that direction.’
His commitment to the Crewe cause includes moving to England, and Mindt is loving life in the UK, not least because his children are too. ‘They love school here. In Germany there are too many rules. They put you into boxes. Here the school is al-ways asking them questions and lis-tening: “What is missing? How can we help you?” I love this.’ That word again: listening. An emotionally sensitive and ap-proachable figure, Mindt’s now working with a team several orders of magnitude more compac
