Walter de'Silva has influenced the design of many Alfa Romeos, Seats, Audis and now, as head of design for the entire Volkswagen Group, is responsible for the design direction of everything from Bentleys and Lamborghinis to the new VW Golf. Leica, the iconic German optics company, recently asked de'Silva design a limited titanium edition of their M9. De'Silva follows in the footsteps of fellow car designer Giorgetto Giugiaro, who designed for Canon and whose ItalDesign studio de'Silva's employers recently acquired.
Only 500 examples of the limited-edition, de'Silva-designed Leica M9 Titanium will be produced, going for (cough) $31,300 apiece... it seems you don't get a free VW with it though....
Disregarding the exorbitant princely sum it takes to purchase one of these, I do love how restrained the the M9 Titanium is with a focus on function and materiality. I wish Mr de'Silva could influence his teams at the VW group to maintain a similar design ethic. In my opinion, the VW and Audi lines of product of late have ever creeping amounts of superfluously stylized surfaces, moving away from the appropriately Bauhaus inspired styles Freeman Thomas and Jay Mays designed in the early 2000's. For reference, below is a comparison between the 2001 and 2010 Audi TT.
