“Driving pleasure is what matters most”

Manfred Harrer’s role is to develop all of Hyundai Motor Group’s global output. MARK TISSHAW meets the man with motoring’s longest to-do list

- MARK TISSHAW

Manfred Harrer is not an engineer to shy away from a challenge. In his career to date, the German has overseen the Porsche 911’s switch from hydraulic to electric steering and subsequently the adoption of its four-wheel steering system, and he has led the development of controversial and often unwelcome automated driving features on Porsches.

Earlier in his career, he was tasked by BMW with sorting out the artificial feel on the original R50 BMW Mini’s electric steering and then leading development of the steering on the subsequent R56. Harrer is such a specialist in electric steering that he even completed a PhD on the technology at the University of Bath, all while doing his day job.

A stint at Apple in California on the tech giant’s secretive and ultimately abandoned car project followed his time at Porsche, before an encounter with long-term BMW M development chief and more recently face of Hyundai-Kia development Albert Biermann started a sequence of events that led him to South Korea.

Harrer is speaking to us at the Hyundai Motor Group's (HMG) vast Namyang R&D global base just south of Seoul in Korea exactly a year to the day since he first joined the company as head of Genesis and performance vehicle development.

That became simply a “warm-up” for Harrer to learn and understand “how the company works”. Since the beginning of this year he has been promoted in double-quick time to take charge of the development of all Hyundai, Kia and Genesis cars and light commercial vehicles. Long-term Korean colleagues remark that they have never seen an ascent like it.

Given the vast global scale of the world’s third-largest car maker, Harrer not only leads 6000 engineers at Namyang creating the HMG cars that are familiar on our roads but also oversees global facilities developing models for the likes of China, India, North America and emerging markets. More than seven million vehicles a year will carry his influence.