11 Car Company Headquarters, From Wolfsburg to Toyota City

1. 

   01

   Volkswagen Group · Wolfsburg, Germany

   A listed 13-storey office building from 1959 on the Mittelland Canal, stripped to its concrete frame and given 1,200 new windows — for a company whose staff work a 35-hour week.

   • 28,300 m² head office building after the 2016 revitalization
   • 35 h standard working week (collective agreement)
   • 30 days paid leave a year, plus Dec 24 and 31 off

   Volkswagen's 13-storey office building was completed in 1959. Between 2013 and 2016 the listed building was revitalized by Gewers Pudewill: the whole facade was taken off and rebuilt, 1,200 windows were replaced, fire protection, heating, cooling and data systems were renewed, and two new entrances with “flying” canopy roofs and a two-storey showroom for new models were added. Inside, the lighting runs in a custom ceiling channel that also carries sprinklers, speakers and ventilation, so the ceilings stay clear.

   Source: Facts: Gewers Pudewill project page “Volkswagen Head Office Building, Wolfsburg” · Kardorff Ingenieure project page · omniCon project page · Volkswagen Chronicle 1950–1960 (volkswagen-group.com)

   The full Volkswagen Group profile →

2. 

   02

   Toyota Motor Corporation · Toyota City, Japan

   Toyota's head office still shares its site with the car plant it opened in 1938, on what was once a barren plain called Ronchigahara.

   • 1938 Honsha Plant opened — on the same site as the head office
   • 23,479 people at the Head Office & Technical Center site (Mar 31, 2026)
   • 0.7% voluntary turnover at Toyota Motor Corporation, FY2026

   Toyota's head office at 1 Toyota-cho stands on the same site as the Honsha Plant — opened in 1938 as the Koromo Plant — and the technical center; 23,479 people work across the Head Office and Technical Center site. A head office building was completed there in 1960 (now the former Head Office), and a new main building opened in 2005. In Plano, Texas, Toyota Motor North America works on a seven-building, LEED Platinum campus by Corgan, arranged around a central courtyard shaped by the contours of a creek bed, with green roofs, shaded loggias and an interconnecting stair in a light well at the heart of each building.

   Source: Facts: Toyota Times, “The History of Toyota's Honsha Plant” · global.toyota, Trajectory of Toyota (history 02) · Form 20-F FY2026, Item 4.D · Corgan project page “Toyota North America Headquarters and R&D Facility” · Toyota Pressroom, July 6, 2017.

   The full Toyota Motor Corporation profile →

3. 

   03

   Honda · Tokyo, Japan

   Honda now runs its head office on a single open floor — and in 2029 it moves back to the Tokyo Station block where its first own building stood.

   • 1 floor the head office's “one-floor” layout in Toranomon (since May 2025)
   • 6.8× bigger office floors at Yaesu (2029) than at Aoyama
   • 121 days off a year (Japan)

   In May 2025 Honda moved its head office functions out of the Aoyama Building, which is being rebuilt, into Toranomon Alcea Tower (and the Honda Wako Building). In Toranomon everyone works in one space on one floor instead of across many floors; Honda says this has strengthened ties and made its “Waigaya” discussions livelier. In the same tower, Honda Software Studio Tokyo brings together about 1,100 software people: a pure-white entrance with only the red Honda logo, furniture curved like a highway clothoid, and a big table cut from a cherry tree felled at Honda's Tochigi research site.

   Source: Facts: Honda news release (Aug 29, 2025) · Honda SDV R&D Center site, “Tokyo | Toranomon” and article of Aug 17, 2026 · Nihon Sekkei and Taisei Corporation project pages for Toranomon Alcea Tower.

   The full Honda profile →

4. 

   04

   Ford Motor Company · Dearborn, Michigan

   Ford's new 2.1 million sq ft headquarters has 22-inch concrete floors, so a full-size vehicle can be placed almost anywhere in the building.

   • 2.1M sq ft new World Headquarters, opened 2025
   • 26 vehicle turntables inside the building
   • 4,000 people when complete in 2027 — twice the Glass House

   Ford's first new headquarters in 70 years stacks design, engineering and leadership in one four-story building shaped by three overlapping hexagons. Floors are 22 inches of concrete so vehicles can travel by freight elevator into studios, showrooms and “Energy Rooms” big enough for a full-size car. Lobbies use red cedar, terrazzo and paint swatches from the Model T to the Mustang Mach-E, and the window glass carries the patent numbers of Ford inventions.

   Source: Facts: Ford From the Road (Key Facts, Sep 15, 2025; “How Ford's New World Headquarters Redefines the Work Experience”, Nov 16, 2025; grand opening recap, Nov 17, 2025) · Snøhetta and Arcadis project pages.

   The full Ford Motor Company profile →

5. 

   05

   General Motors · Detroit, Michigan

   In January 2026 GM moved back to Woodward Avenue, into offices its own designers modeled on Eero Saarinen's Tech Center, around a seven-story atrium.

   • 4th Detroit headquarters since 1911
   • 12 weeks paid parental leave (after one year)
   • 155,000 employees worldwide, end of 2025

   GM's new global headquarters sits in Hudson's Detroit, on the site of the old J.L. Hudson department store. GM Design created the interior: it echoes Eero Saarinen's work at the Global Technical Center in Warren and includes art installations, among them works by Detroit's own Harry Bertoia. The lobby at Entrance One shows GM's latest vehicles to Woodward Avenue. The office building wraps around a seven-story central atrium.

   Source: Facts: GM Pressroom “General Motors' new home in Detroit” (Jan 12, 2026) · Hudson's Detroit leasing page · SHoP Architects project page “Hudson's Detroit”

   The full General Motors profile →

6. 

   06

   BMW Group · Munich, Germany

   A 99.5-metre tower of four cylinders whose office floors hang from a steel cross on the roof — built from the top down in 1970–72.

   • 99.5 m Four-Cylinder height, just above the Frauenkirche towers
   • 16,800 t of tower suspended from a cross on the roof
   • 30 days holiday a year (Germany, full-time)

   Karl Schwanzer gave every floor a cloverleaf plan: four circular segments around a core, crossed by two corridors that link the team offices. BMW says most of the segments are still open-plan offices and that individual offices are “few and far between”, so trainees and heads of department sit in team offices. In the entrance foyer hang Gerhard Richter's three “Red – Yellow – Blue” paintings, made for this lobby in 1973 and shown since 2023 in climate-controlled glass cases.

   Source: Facts: BMW Group press kit “40 years of BMW Headquarters and Museum” (2013) · BMW Group press release on Gerhard Richter's “Red – Yellow – Blue”, Oct 5, 2023

   The full BMW Group profile →

7. 

   07

   Nissan · Yokohama, Japan

   A 22-floor glass headquarters with a public walkway running through it, a free car gallery on the ground floor — and a daycare for employees' children inside.

   • 92,102 m² floor area of the Global Headquarters (≈ 991,000 sq ft)
   • 121 days off a year (Japan)
   • No core time “super flex” hours, plus remote work with no upper limit

   Nissan's head office stands where the walkway from Yokohama Station enters Minato Mirai 21. The ground floor is a tall open hall with the car gallery, crossed by a public pedestrian deck. The offices above have all-glass north and south walls. Along both sides of each floor runs an “engawa” (veranda), a two-storey space for meetings; the north and south engawa are offset by one floor, so every office floor connects to the floors above and below. Outside, aluminium louvres called “sudare” (bamboo blinds) shade the glass, and a light well in the middle of each floor brings in daylight and natural ventilation. The design theme was “JAPANESE DNA”.

   Source: Facts: Takenaka Corporation project page “Nissan Global Headquarters” · Institute for Building Environment and Energy Conservation (IBEC), 4th Sustainable Architecture Award review · Shimizu Corporation project page.

   The full Nissan profile →

8. 

   08

   Audi · Ingolstadt, Germany

   Behind a fully glazed façade modelled on the rings of a tree trunk, revolving platforms carry historic cars through four floors — at the gate of a plant where about 40,000 people work.

   • ≈ 40,000 people work at the Ingolstadt site (end of 2025)
   • 35 h working week
   • 6–8 days extra leave by converting the annual “T-Zug” allowance

   Audi's headquarters sits on its largest plant, at the Audi Forum Ingolstadt — the place where customers collect new cars, visitors tour the factory and the brand shows its history. Its centrepiece is the Audi museum mobile by HENN, opened on December 15, 2000: a fully glazed building whose layout follows the annual rings of a tree trunk, with a huge paternoster of revolving platforms that carries exhibits through all four floors. In October 2018 more than 2,500 employees moved into the H6 office complex south-east of the plant, with flexible, light-filled rooms, a canteen with an integrated Work Lounge and stepped architecture that links the plant to the neighbouring housing.

   Source: Facts: HENN project page “Audi Museum Mobile” · audi.de Audi Forum Ingolstadt (museum mobile) · audi.com press release “Audi museum mobile celebrates its 20th birthday” · Audi MediaCenter photo captions “The new home of AUDI AG Sales and Marketing” (Oct 23, 2018) · audi.com Profile of location Ingolstadt

   The full Audi profile →

9. 

   09

   Hyundai Motor Company · Seoul, South Korea

   A headquarters lobby rebuilt as an “Agora” across five floors — with a library, a 50-meter pool and robots that water the plants and deliver the coffee.

   • ≈ 36,000 m² of shared space renovated, 2024–2026
   • 50 m swimming pool under the lobby
   • 15.8 yrs average tenure in Korea (2025)

   Hyundai has run its headquarters from the Yangjae building in Seoul since December 2000. From May 2024 the Group rebuilt the shared floors, from the basement to the fourth floor, around the “Agora”, a stepped lounge modelled on the ancient Greek public square. STUDIOS Architecture removed the tall walls beside the atrium and raised the ceilings so people can see each other across floors. Around it: a café, 17 meeting rooms, a library curated by Japan's Culture Convenience Club, a grand hall, a rooftop garden and, downstairs, a dining street inspired by Paris's Marais, a 50-meter pool, a gym and an arcade. The renovated lobby opened in early March 2026.

   Source: Facts: Hyundai Motor Group newsroom, “Executive Chair Outlines Vision for Collaboration and Innovation at Transformed Seoul HQ” (May 14, 2026) and “Inside Hyundai Motor Group's Renovated HQ” (May 15, 2026) · hyundaimotorgroup.com story “From a lobby people pass through to a plaza where they stay” (May 21, 2026) · STUDIOS Architecture project page “Hyundai Headquarters”.

   The full Hyundai Motor Company profile →

10. 

    10

    Porsche · Stuttgart, Germany

    Office floors rebuilt around focus rooms, project areas and alcoves, on the same Zuffenhausen site where every 911 still comes off one production line.

    • 600,000+ m² Zuffenhausen site (≈ 6.46M sq ft)
    • 30 days holiday for every full-time employee
    • 12 days remote work possible per month

    Porsche is rolling out one office concept across all its buildings and sites: activity-based floors with focus rooms, project areas and alcoves, common rooms for exchange, and seating niches along the passageways. Porsche says the goal is to keep its “garage feeling” and make the brand's culture visible in the office design. Around the offices sit the plants where the 911, the 718 and the Taycan are built, and the Porsche Museum on Porscheplatz.

    Source: Facts: porsche.com “Porsche Working Environments” · Porsche Newsroom “Keeping that garage feeling” (2018) and “Zuffenhausen: The birth of the Porsche factory” (2025) · DMAA project page “Porsche Museum”.

    The full Porsche profile →

11. 

    11

    Ferrari · Maranello, Italy

    An office building floating over water and bamboo, an assembly hall under one louvered roof — and a free yearly medical check-up for employees and their children.

    • 832,000 m² covered area at Maranello (≈ 8.96M sq ft)
    • Since 1943 headquarters in Maranello
    • 4,164 employees given a yearly check-up (2025)

    Ferrari's offices sit inside its Maranello plant. Around the historic gate on Via Abetone Inferiore stand a wind tunnel by Renzo Piano, the Product Development Centre by Massimiliano Fuksas — offices over a sheet of water with a garden of bamboo below — an assembly building by Jean Nouvel under a large louvered roof, and the e-building by Mario Cucinella Architects, wrapped in opal glass with break areas and an indoor garden.

    Source: Facts: Form 20-F 2025, Properties · Ferrari Magazine, “A special ‘home’ called Maranello” (Aug 7, 2020) · Fuksas project page · Ateliers Jean Nouvel project page · MCA project page · ferrari.com e-building release (Jun 21, 2024)

    The full Ferrari profile →

How we made this: every fact, photo and credit comes from the company profiles on eciffo, which cite the company’s own reports, press releases and architects. We add companies as their profiles are finished, so this list grows.