The podcast episode with Roland Gumpert offers fascinating insights into the history of the automotive industry - from the revolutionary development of the Audi Quattro and the spectacular rally successes in the legendary Group B era to Gumpert's role as an entrepreneur and visionary of modern drive technologies. In the interview, he talks about technical innovations, personal experiences with rally legends such as Walter Röhrl and Michèle Mouton and his challenges as founder of the Gumpert sports car brand. Of particular interest is his current involvement in the field of methanol fuel cell technology, with which he is rethinking sustainable mobility.
This episode is a clear recommendation for anyone interested in automotive history, technical innovations and the personal perspective of an engineer who has significantly shaped the automotive world.
In this podcast episode of "Old school - the golden era of the automobile", Roland Gumpert is our guest. Roland Gumpert is an important figure in the automotive industry: as an engineer at Audi for many years, he played a key role in the development of all-wheel drive ("quattro") and headed Audi's motorsport department in the 1980s. Under his leadership, Audi celebrated great rally successes in the legendary Group B era. Gumpert later founded his own sports car factory and developed the Gumpert Apollo, an uncompromising super sports car. He also remained innovative beyond conventional automotive engineering: today, at over 80 years of age, he is working on pioneering drive technologies and relies on a methanol fuel cell to use hydrogen as an energy source.
The episode provides a detailed overview of Roland Gumpert's career and his achievements. The presenter (Karsten Arndt) and Gumpert talk about his early enthusiasm for mechanics, his start at Audi and the development of the Audi quattro - an idea that was to revolutionize rallying. Gumpert also talks about his experiences as Head of Audi Motorsport in the wild Group B era, including exciting anecdotes about rally competitions and famous drivers. After the end of Group B, Gumpert moved into management and was instrumental in preparing Audi's market entry in China. Finally, the episode sheds light on how Gumpert ventured into self-employment after decades with the Group: he set up his own company and designed the Apollo super sports car. Finally, the conversation turns to Gumpert's current project - an electric sports car called Nathalie, which is powered by an innovative methanol fuel cell. This "marathon episode" (almost three hours of conversation) thus covers Gumpert's entire career from the rise of Audi in the 1970s to the challenges and opportunities of modern drive technologies.
Important insights
- Roland Gumpert was the brainchild behind Audi's first all-wheel drive for passenger cars, the legendary "quattro". At the end of the 1970s, he came up with the idea of integrating the drive technology of the off-road VW Iltis into an Audi 80. Together with colleagues such as Jörg Bensinger, he implemented this vision despite initial scepticism within the company - the result was the Audi Quattro, a model that redefined driving dynamics and traction.
- The introduction of the Quattro all-wheel drive revolutionized rallying and Audi's brand image. With Gumbert's significant involvement, Audi won numerous World Rally Championship races and several world championship titles in the 1980s. The Audi Quattro became the epitome of modern all-wheel drive technology and helped Audi to achieve international renown at a time when all-wheel drive was still hardly widespread in racing.
- As head of the Audi motorsport department, Gumpert had to manage a team of top drivers and ensure top technical performance. He worked with rally legends such as Hannu Mikkola, Michèle Mouton, Stig Blomqvist and later Walter Röhrl. In the podcast episode, he describes how he balanced the different characters and egos of these drivers while always keeping an eye on the team structure and the success of Audi Sport.
- The Group B rally era, which Gumpert helped to shape as Head of Audi Motorsport, was as glamorous as it was risky. He talks about the extreme demands of the time - vehicles with well over 500 hp in some cases, enthusiastic crowds along the route and sometimes chaotic conditions. Gumpert also talks about dramatic accidents and night-time repairs that were necessary to get rally cars back on the starting grid despite severe damage; looking back, he realizes that the end of Group B in 1986 was inevitable for safety reasons and probably came at the right time.
- After the end of his involvement in rallying, Gumpert moved on to other roles within the Audi Group and, among other things, pushed ahead with internationalization. In the 1990s, he played a leading role in establishing Audi's presence on the Chinese market. He was the first Audi manager to go to China, helping to set up a plant in Changchun and establish a dealer network - a strategic move that secured the Volkswagen Group early access to one of the world's most important automotive markets.
- Back in Germany, Gumpert was confronted with changed board structures in the early 2000s. He got into disagreements with the Audi management (including the then Audi boss Dr. Franz-Josef Paefgen) about the future direction. These differences ultimately led to Gumpert leaving Audi - a decisive turning point, but one that gave him the freedom to pursue his own projects.
- After leaving Audi, Roland Gumpert founded his own company to realize his dream of an ultimate super sports car. He developed the Gumpert Apollo, a road-legal high-performance sports car that was uncompromisingly designed for maximum performance. In the episode, Gumpert describes how, with a small team, he designed a vehicle that used Formula 1 technologies such as pushrod suspension and extreme aerodynamics to set standards on the racetrack.
- The Gumpert Apollo proved to be a technical masterpiece, but also brought with it major entrepreneurial challenges. Gumpert reports that a total of almost 100 Apollo cars were produced and that his company broke even at a production rate of around one vehicle per month. Despite worldwide homologation - the Apollo was even allowed on the road in Hong Kong - the project ran into difficulties: When Chinese authorities unexpectedly imposed an import ban on the Apollo in 2012, an important market collapsed and the company had to file for insolvency.
- However, even after this setback, Gumpert remained loyal to automotive engineering and turned his attention to innovative drive technologies. He launched a new project, the "Nathalie" electric sports car, which is powered by a methanol fuel cell. Instead of relying on conventional batteries or directly stored hydrogen, Gumpert developed a system in which hydrogen is extracted from the liquid methanol on board and converted into electricity in the fuel cell - an approach that enables fast "refueling" and at the same time offers emission-free electromobility.
- Gumpert sees great potential in methanol fuel cell technology for the future of the automotive industry and beyond. In the interview, he emphasizes that methanol is a viable alternative as an energy source, as it is easy to transport and could be used worldwide with minimal adaptation of the filling station infrastructure. He advocates openness to technology: in view of the disadvantages of purely battery electric vehicles (limited range, charging times) and classic hydrogen fuel cells (expensive infrastructure, safety aspects), the methanol route could offer a middle way to implement climate-neutral mobility on a large scale.
- A key personal conclusion from the episode is Gumbert's unwavering passion for the automobile. Despite his age, he has found his "retirement" - he describes his profession as his hobby and sees no reason to stop as long as he enjoys his work. This attitude permeates his life's work: from a young engineer to a visionary 80-year-old, Gumpert has always been at the forefront when it comes to shaping automotive progress.
Detailed overview of topics
Early years, training and joining Audi
Roland Gumpert was born in 1944 and spent his childhood in the deprived post-war period. His family originally came from Silesia (now Poland) and owned a paper factory there, but lost their property during the Second World War and when they fled to West Germany. Gumbert's father - himself a mechanical engineer - had to start a new career after 1945 and taught the family and Roland, in particular, manual skills. Even as a boy, Roland showed an interest in technology: he dismantled his toy fire engine to repair it, for example, and helped his father mend bicycle tires and do other mechanical work. This early influence laid the foundation for Gumpert's passion for machines and vehicles.
After leaving school, Gumpert decided to study mechanical engineering (he attended Graz University of Technology) and then embarked on a career in the automotive industry. At the end of the 1960s, he started as a test engineer at Audi in Ingolstadt. There he was able to live out his creativity and technical ambition: His first projects included the Audi 50, a small car that he helped develop in the early 1970s. Background: The Audi 50 came onto the market in 1974 and was produced almost identically a little later as the VW Polo - a model that still exists today. Gumpert is proud to have been involved in this vehicle, as it laid the foundation for a small car that is still successful today. Even during this time, Gumpert's ability to work in an interdisciplinary manner and to create a successful product together with colleagues from different areas of the company - Audi was merging with NSU in Neckarsulm at the time - was evident.
In his early years at Audi, Gumpert's leadership style was also formed, which later stood him in good stead as a manager and project leader. He mentions that he learned a lot from his parents: a love of technology and determination from his father, diplomacy and the value of a good interpersonal climate from his mother. Instead of using a hard hand ("whip") alone, as a young manager Gumpert focused on motivation and a sense of unity in the team. He is convinced that a positive working atmosphere leads to better results in the long term - a principle that he has maintained over the decades.
The birth of the Audi quattro
In the late 1970s, Roland Gumpert was involved in a development project that would fundamentally change Audi: the introduction of permanent all-wheel drive in passenger cars. The brilliant idea came to him from very practical experience: Audi had developed the VW Iltis off-road vehicle for military purposes, which proved to be extremely sure-footed and agile. Gumpert recognized the potential of this drive for sporty road vehicles. He had his colleague Jörg Bensinger - also a test engineer - try out the Iltis during winter test drives in Scandinavia. Bensinger was convinced by the superiority of the 75 hp Iltis on snow compared to more powerful, but only two-wheel-drive cars. Together, the two approached Audi's Head of Technical Development Ferdinand Piëch and promoted the vision of an all-wheel drive Audi production model.
Background: The VW Iltis was a compact all-wheel drive off-road vehicle that Audi built for the German army in the 1970s. Its robust construction and selectable 4×4 drive gave the Iltis exceptional off-road capabilities. These characteristics provided the inspiration for Audi's quattro system, which was the first time a series-produced car from the brand had four driven wheels.
Gumpert and Bensinger were given the green light to initially build a prototype in the pre-development phase. Under the direction of Audi engineer Walter Treser - the head of pre-development at the time - an Audi 80 was equipped with the Iltis' drive technology. This test vehicle impressively confirmed the expectations: The combination of powerful engine and all-wheel drive gave the car previously unattainable traction and stability on a wide variety of road surfaces. The resulting Audi Quattro made its debut in 1980 and ushered in a new era. Gumpert talks about this time with pride, but also with a twinkle in his eye: he "invented the Quattro", he says confidently. While others - such as Piëch - received a lot of recognition (and even academic honors) for the Quattro project, Gumpert tended to remain in the background - he jokes that he didn't even get a pay rise for it. Nevertheless, the Audi Quattro is considered a milestone that would not have come about without Gumpert's perseverance and vision.
Success in Group B rallying: Audi Sport in the 1980s
With the Quattro drive behind them, Audi made a triumphant entry into the World Rally Championship from 1981. Roland Gumpert took over the management of Audi Sport at this time and formed a world-class rally team from nothing. The Audi Quattro dominated many competitions: as early as 1982, Audi driver Michèle Mouton fought for the world championship title (a sensation, as this was the first time a woman had seriously competed for the world rally championship) and in 1983 Hannu Mikkola won the drivers' world championship. in 1984, Audi won both the drivers' and manufacturers' world championships with Stig Blomqvist. Gumpert proudly recounts that Audi won a total of 25 World Rally Championship rounds in those years - proof of the superiority of the Quattro system and the outstanding team performance.
As Head of Motorsport, Gumpert not only had to drive forward technical developments, but also manage a team of charismatic top drivers. In addition to Mikkola and Mouton, the core team also included Stig Blomqvist; in 1984, rally icon Walter Röhrl also joined the Audi team under pressure from the Board of Management. This expansion brought challenges with it: Gumpert was initially skeptical as to whether another star would fit into the team, especially as Audi now had to field four instead of three works cars. He reports how he endeavored to treat all drivers equally - even Röhrl was not automatically given the most powerful engine in order to maintain fairness in the team. At the same time, Gumpert recognized the different strengths of his drivers: Mouton, for example, was faster on asphalt tracks than her male colleagues, while the Scandinavian drivers excelled on snow. He used such insights to tailor deployment strategies and vehicle set-ups optimally to drivers and conditions.
Background: "Group B" was the top category in rallying from 1982 to 1986. It allowed almost unlimited modifications to the vehicles, which led to increasingly extreme cars (power far in excess of 400 hp, lightweight construction, four-wheel drive, etc.). These spectacular cars attracted masses of spectators, but were difficult to control. After several serious accidents - involving both drivers and spectators - Group B was banned by the FIA at the end of 1986.
In the podcast episode, Gumpert impressively conveys the atmosphere of those "wild" rally years. He describes how mechanics worked under high pressure and sometimes had to make damaged vehicles roadworthy again overnight in order to remain in the competition. Audi constantly introduced technical developments - from the shorter Sport Quattro to aerodynamic wings - in order to stand up to competitors such as Peugeot. But the risks grew: Gumpert remembers dangerous situations and incidents that made it clear that the limits of what was acceptable had been reached. When Group B came to an abrupt end in 1986 following tragic accidents, this marked the end of a golden era for Audi Sport, but Gumpert admits that it happened "at the right time" - the safety of drivers and spectators ultimately came first. With the conclusion of the rally programs, he turned to new tasks within the Audi Group.
Change to management: Audi in China
After the end of the rally era, Gumpert took on new tasks within the Audi Group, initially in technical development and finally in sales. In the late 1980s and 1990s, he drove Audi's internationalization forward. His focus became the Asia-Pacific region, which was becoming increasingly important for German manufacturers at the time. Gumpert recounts how he was the first Audi manager to be sent to China to prepare the market entry there. He moved to Changchun in the 1990s and helped to set up a production site and a local sales structure. He helped set up the first Audi plant in China and organized the establishment of the first Audi dealer networks in the country - according to Gumpert, the first 25 large "hangar" sales centers in China can be traced back to his concept.
Background: Audi was one of the pioneers among Western car manufacturers in China. As early as 1988, a joint venture between Audi/VW and its Chinese partner FAW was launched in Changchun, where the Audi 100 was built under license. This vehicle also served as the basis for prestigious Hongqi brand limousines, which were used as state cars in China. The early local production gave Audi a considerable advantage, as it gained the trust of state authorities early on and was able to sell millions of vehicles on the Chinese market in the following decades.
Gumpert is visibly proud of his contribution to Audi's success in China - an achievement that is hardly known to the public. He reports on how the commitment in China ultimately brought the Volkswagen Group enormous sales figures and made Audi the epitome of German premium automobiles there. After three years in Changchun, Gumpert returned to Germany in 2001. He was offered a position on the Audi Board of Management as a kind of "China coordinator", but things turned out differently: Gumpert got into disagreements with the then Chairman of the Audi Board of Management, Dr. Franz-Josef Paefgen. The latter was himself in a difficult situation (during Paefgen's term of office, for example, he criticized the unstable aerodynamics of the first-generation Audi TT, which required improvements). The tensions and differing views on the future direction ultimately led to Gumpert leaving Audi. In the interview, he indicated that he "did not agree" with certain decisions and therefore did not take on the expected role as China guru in the company. In 2004, his contract with Audi ended for good - after more than three decades with the Group, Roland Gumpert opened a new chapter in his professional life.
The path to independence: the creation of Gumpert Apollo
After leaving Audi, Roland Gumpert did not hesitate for long to set up his own company. He wanted to realize his vision of an uncompromising super sports car - without the constraints of a large corporation. in 2004, he founded Gumpert Sportwagenmanufaktur in Altenburg (Thuringia). Together with a few companions (including engine specialist Roland Mayer), he began developing the "Apollo", a road-legal sports car that would rival the fastest in the world. Gumpert drew on his decades of experience: the vehicle had to be light, powerful and aerodynamically as efficient as possible. A modified Audi V8 engine with biturbo charging served as the drive, giving the Apollo brute power. Even more important, however, was the chassis and body concept: Gumpert relied on racing technology such as a pushrod chassis and a fully clad underbody with diffusers to generate enormous downforce. The result was a purist two-seater in which comfort took a back seat to performance - in line with Gumpert's philosophy of building a "driver's car".
The development of the Apollo required innovative approaches. Gumpert reports how his small team optimized the chassis kinematics with the help of modern computer simulations: complex calculations were run on mainframe computers over a weekend to find the optimal geometry for the suspension and aerodynamics. The result was impressive: the Apollo generates so much downforce at high speeds that it could theoretically drive upside down on the ceiling of a tunnel. Gumpert confirms in the podcast episode that this scenario was not just theoretical - they actually planned, in cooperation with Red Bull, to build a sufficiently long tunnel to allow the Apollo to drive upside down (a plan that was ultimately not realized for practical reasons). This anecdote underlines the extreme emphasis that was placed on the aerodynamic performance of the vehicle.
In 2005/2006, the Gumpert Apollo was ready for series production and was presented to the public. The experts reacted with amazement: a new German small-series super sports car that could compete with established brands in terms of lap times and driving dynamics was born. It was a dream come true for Gumpert - he had proven that he could develop and build a high-tech automobile under his own steam.
Technology and fate of the Gumpert Apollo
The Gumpert Apollo caused a sensation among sports car enthusiasts: It offered radical performance figures and a driving experience like a racing car - on a legal road license. In practice, it turned out that the Apollo was indeed one of the fastest cars of its time. In independent tests, it set lap times that put even established super sports cars in the shade. However, the vehicle was not a compromise car: it was loud, hard-sprung and visually angular - characteristics that made it attractive to purists but less suitable for the mass market. Gumpert consciously accepted this, as the Apollo was to embody exactly what he had in mind: ultimate performance.
The Apollo was produced entirely by hand. Gumpert reports that a total of almost 100 units were built during the active years of his company. Each vehicle was individually manufactured and cost several hundred thousand euros. The business was demanding: in order to be profitable, Gumpert had to sell around one car per month - a challenging target in the exclusive super sports car segment. In fact, the company initially managed to find enough customers, especially overseas. An order from Hong Kong for more than a dozen vehicles kept the company busy for many months. Gumpert recalls that the company even tried to gain a foothold in China through clever homologation and logistics processes, even though strict import restrictions were in place there.
However, the Apollo project eventually ran into a crisis. in 2012, the Chinese authorities imposed an import ban, which brought sales in this important market to an abrupt end. This blow hit the small company hard. Without the expected sales, the financing could no longer be maintained and Gumbert's sports car manufacturer had to file for insolvency. Despite the technical successes, this meant the end of the Apollo chapter for the time being. Today, Gumpert looks back on it with some melancholy, but also humor - if the company had not relied on a single market, the story might have turned out differently. For him personally, however, it was clear that giving up was out of the question. After the failure of his company, Roland Gumpert turned his focus back to the future and looked for new ways to put his ideas into practice.
New paths: methanol fuel cells and the Nathalie super sports car
After the end of his sports car manufacturing business, Roland Gumpert turned his attention to a completely new field: alternative drive technology. He recognized early on the coming changes in the automotive industry towards electric vehicles, but also saw the weaknesses of pure battery solutions (limited range, long charging times) and classic hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (complicated and expensive hydrogen infrastructure). Gumpert's answer to this is a hybrid of the tried and tested and the new: an electric sports car that draws its power not from a large battery, but from a methanol fuel cell. His new model is called "Nathalie" - named after one of his daughters - and embodies the idea of combining high performance and environmental compatibility.
The way the Nathalie works is unconventional: the car contains tanks with methanol (an alcohol-like liquid fuel) and water. A reformer unit splits the methanol in the vehicle into hydrogen and CO2. The released hydrogen is then reacted with oxygen from the air in a fuel cell to form water, generating electrical energy that drives the electric motors. Background: A fuel cell is similar in principle to a battery, but is continuously supplied with fuel. In this case, methanol serves as an easier-to-handle energy source from which the required hydrogen is produced. This eliminates the time-consuming handling of gaseous hydrogen; instead, liquid methanol can be refueled in a similar way to petrol.
Gumpert explains that methanol filling stations could be set up worldwide with little effort - basically, all you would need are different nozzles and adapted seals, as methanol is liquid at ambient temperature. The advantages are obvious: "refueling" the Nathalie would only take a few minutes and yet the car drives electrically and emission-free (the CO2 produced during reforming is not added from fossil sources, provided green methanol is used). Gumpert emphasizes that this concept is scalable: from sports cars to everyday vehicles or even stationary systems (such as home energy), the methanol fuel cell could make a contribution to the energy transition.
Of course, this technology is still in its infancy. Gumpert reports on how he is trying to convince politicians and investors of the idea - for example, he had former Federal Minister of Transport Andreas Scheuer test drive the Nathalie to attract attention to the methanol solution. The response has been cautiously positive: people recognize the disadvantages of the current alternatives and value Gumbert's concept as an innovative option. Nevertheless, there are still hurdles to overcome, such as the large-scale production of "green" methanol (from renewable electricity and captured CO2). However, Gumpert is an optimist: he is convinced that with enough support, this vision can be realized. At an age when others have long since retired, he is once again stepping up as a pioneer to show the automotive world a new drive option.
Conclusion
The extensive podcast episode with Roland Gumpert impressively demonstrates the lifetime achievements of an automotive pioneer who has shaped the industry in a wide variety of areas. From his beginnings as an inventive engineer who put the Audi quattro all-wheel drive on the road, to the glorious - and dangerous - years of rally motorsport, to entrepreneurial daring with his own super sports car and finally visionary plans for sustainable mobility, Gumpert's career arc spans a wide range of areas. Each section of this biography provides important insights for the automotive industry: the introduction of new technologies requires courage and perseverance, as the Quattro project shows. Motorsport taught him how extreme situations bring about innovation, but also the responsibility that those responsible for technology bear for safety. Gumbert's foray into entrepreneurship with the Apollo demonstrated the challenges and risks faced by small manufacturers in the exclusive market. And his current commitment to the methanol fuel cell makes it clear that the search for the optimal drive solution continues and that unconventional approaches are often necessary.
Gumbert's experiences are highly relevant for the automotive industry. The history of the Audi quattro is an example of how a single innovation can change the course of a company - Audi became a sporty premium brand thanks to its all-wheel drive success. The Group B era remains a reminder that technical progress can be dangerous without adequate safety precautions. Gumpert's success in China underlines the importance of global vision and local presence long before "globalization" became a buzzword. His failure and recovery with his own company shows how much passion is needed in the automotive industry and that setbacks are part of the innovation process.
In conclusion, Roland Gumpert is a living link between the "golden era" of the automobile and the present day. He not only witnessed historical developments, but actively shaped them - and he still does. The anecdotes and experiences discussed in the following make it clear that curiosity and drive know no age: At over 80, Gumpert is once again driving a forward-looking project. His story inspires and reminds us that the automotive world is constantly changing - driven by visionaries like him who are willing to push boundaries and explore new terrain.