Winterkorn struggling for survival

"I am endlessly sorry." I'm asking for your trust." Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn on Tuesday sounded like a husband, whose wife just found another woman's phone number while doing the laundry. But as he pleaded with disillusioned buyers to give him a second chance, he stopped short of admitting guilt.

Winterkorn is likely to repeat the ritual as he steps before the executive committee of the Group's supervisory board on Wednesday: "I am endlessly sorry. I'm asking for your trust."

But the sense of betrayal may still be too fresh, the cut too deep. Whether he actually cheated - or at least helped cover up the cheating - may no longer matter.

It's an unexpected twist of fate for the 68-year-old, who looked emboldened after surviving a Spring coup by his former mentor and VW patriarch Ferdinand Piech. And it could go down as one of the most dramatic falls from grace in the history of the industry.

Humble beginnings

That something like this could happen under Winterkorn's watch seems almost ironic. Raised on the doorstep of Germany's auto empire, Stuttgart, the working-class kid from Leonberg was virtually born with octane in his blood.

"Anyone who, like me, came of age in the post-war era, grew up with cars...And if you grew up in Swabia, near Zuffenhausen [the home of Porsche], and watched as the stunning Porsches drove by every day, you couldn't help but develop an interest in cars. And that's why I became a car engineer," Winterkorn told DW in an interview last year.

After graduating from the University of Stuttgart with a degree in Metallurgy and Metal Physics in 1973, he went on to receive a doctorate from the Max-Planck-Institute for Metal Research four years later.

Meteoric rise

His meteoric rise in the industry began soon after joining VW subsidiary Audi as assistant to the Member of the Board for Quality Assurance in 1981. Just two years later, he assumed responsibility for "Measuring Technology/Sampling and Test Laboratory" at the company. In 1988, newly appointed Audi chief Ferdinand Piech hand-picked Winterkorn to head the department of "Central Quality Assurance." By 1990, he was named Head of Audi Quality Assurance.

In 1993, he moved to the mothership, heading up the "Group Quality Assurance" department at Volkswagen Group. With each year, he climbed another rung on the ladder: General Representative of Volkswagen AG by 1994, Volkswagen Group Product Management by 1995, and Member of the Board of Management for "Technical Development" by 1996. By 2000, he had become a Member of the Board of Management, responsible for Research and Development. In 2002, he was appointed chair of Audi's Board of Management, until he, five years later, was made CEO of Volkswagen.

King of the industry

Winterkorn was groomed by Piech, and quickly made a name for himself as an uncompromising leader with an eye for detail. His love-affair with cars is the story of legend. He's known to caress their curves and measure gaps between the frames in public. Under his watch, Volkswagen rose from embattled car brand to the world's best-selling automaker.

But while he managed to win over the coveted crowd of Asian middle-class consumers, it's the United States that proved to be his Achilles heal - and the country that might do him in. It was his inability to conquer that market that provided Piech the ammunition to stage his coup.

But bolstered by a record year, in which the company had raked in 200 billion euros, reported a profit of nearly 11 billion euros, and sold more than 10 million cars worldwide, the executive committee came to Winterkorn's rescue. Winterkorn, they insisted at the time, was "the best possible chief executive for Volkswagen."

Image totalled?

But as the car giant is faced with its sharpest drop in share price in almost five years, several billions in damages, and a scandal that threatens to total its image, Winterkorn's future once more hangs by a thread. This time, however, it's far from certain that the CEO can count on the same show of goodwill as in April.

In a way, it's almost ironic that the engineer, who became known for his obsession with detail, could succumb to something as conspicuously folly as cheating on an emissions test. For now, it's unclear what he knew, and when he knew it. His critics argue, Winterkorn either didn't know, but should have, or that he must have known, but chose not to act. Either way, the conclusion is damning, and flies in the face of the image he's been polishing for years.