Ramkripa Ananthan the Head of Design at Mahindra and Mahindra, Ramkripa is a graduate from IDC, IITB. She also did Mechanical Engineering from BITS, Pilani. Her major works include TUV 300, XUV 500 and KUV 100. She was a part in designing Bolero and Xylo also. Meet Ramkripa Ananthan, 40, who heads the 20-member all-Indian styling team that worked on the XUV500. The diminutive designer describes herself as an "out-of-doors type" - she cruises on a Bajaj Avenger, has biked from Manali to Srinagar via Leh, trekked in the Sahyadris and run the Mumbai half marathon. Perhaps it's that bent that led her to go with Vice-Chairman & Managing Director Anand Mahindra's idea of doing research in the wilderness of Kenya and on the Masai Mara for the exteriors and interiors of the XUV500. If Ananthan and her team have succeeded in bringing out the animal in the XUV500, it's evident in the features - and the way she describes them. "The dramatic side of the vehicle is its taut fender pounce, lean body, and distinctive rear haunch over the rear wheel arch," she says, painting a vibrant picture. "For the interiors, the bright centre console seemingly flowing from outside-in makes a connect like the central nervous system of a beast."

Late Rudolf Diesel was a German inventor and mechanical engineer, famous for the invention of the diesel engine, and for his mysterious death. Diesel was the subject of the 1942 film Diesel. Diesel was born in Paris, France in 1858 the second of three children of Elise (née Strobel) and Theodor Diesel. His parents were Bavarian immigrants living in Paris. Theodor Diesel, a bookbinder by trade, left his home town of Augsburg, Bavaria, in 1848. He met his wife, a daughter of a Nuremberg merchant, in Paris in 1855 and became a leather goods manufacturer there. Rudolf Diesel spent his early childhood in France, but at the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, his family was forced to leave, as were many other Germans. They settled in London, England. Before the war's end, however, Diesel's mother sent 12-year-old Rudolf to Augsburg to live with his aunt and uncle, Barbara and Christoph Barnickel, to become fluent in German and to visit the Königliche Kreis-Gewerbeschule (Royal Circle Vocational College), where his uncle taught mathematics. At the age of 14, Diesel wrote a letter to his parents saying that he wanted to become an engineer. After finishing his basic education at the top of his class in 1873, he enrolled at the newly founded Industrial School of Augsburg. Two years later, he received a merit scholarship from the Royal Bavarian Polytechnic of Munich, which he accepted against the wishes of his parents, who would rather have seen him start to work.

Late August Horch was a German engineer and automobile pioneer, the founder of the manufacturing giant which would eventually become Audi. Horch was born in Winningen, Rhenish Prussia. His initial trade was as a blacksmith, and then was educated at Hochschule Mittweida (Mittweida Technical College). After receiving a degree in engineering, he worked in shipbuilding. Horch worked for Karl Benz from 1896, before founding A. Horch & Co. in November 1899, in Ehrenfeld, Cologne, Germany. The first Horch automobile was built in 1901. The company moved to Reichenbach in 1902 and Zwickau in 1904. Horch left the company in 1909 after a dispute, and set up in competition in Zwickau. His new firm was initially called Horch Automobil-Werke GmbH, but following a legal dispute over the Horch name, he decided to make another automobile company. (The court decided that Horch was a registered trademark on behalf of August Horch's former partners and August Horch was not entitled to use it any more). Consequently, Horch named his new company Audi Automobilwerke GmbH in 1910, Audi being the Latinization of Horch. Horch left Audi in 1920 and went to Berlin and took various jobs. He published his autobiography, I Built Cars (Ich Baute Autos) in 1937. He also served on the board of Auto Union, the successor to Audi Automobilwerke GmbH. He was an honorary citizen of Zwickau and had a street named for his Audi cars in both Zwickau and his birthplace Winningen. He was made an honorary professor at Braunschweig University of Technology.