History

The establishment of Modesi was an initiative of Dirk van Sambeek (Sambeek Holding). During his graduation at faculty of Industrial Design, at the Delft University of Technology, he got in touch with vehicle development. From that moment his interest in transportation was developed. Directly after his graduation Van Sambeek founded the company Small Advanced Mobility. SAM developed the so called Cito Dual Mode (CDM) system. A concept with a small, high-tech car-like vehicle which can be driven both automatically and manually.

At that time CDM was too innovative to persue commercially. So mister Van Sambeek decided to start working as a project manager at Polynorm Automotive. There he was responsible for the development of presswork tooling and production take-over of sheet metal panels for Mercedes-Benz, DAF and Ford. In 2000 Van Sambeek switched to FROG Navigation Systems. As an application manager he was responsible for the implementation of automated guided vehicle systems. He was responsible for the world wide innovative Floriade 2002 CyberCab project (in cooperation with Yamaha) and the implementation of the infrastructure for the second generation ParkShuttle in the municipality of Capelle a/d IJssel. Both projects related to state-of-the-art innovations in the field of public transport.

In 2003 the idea occurred to start a new company specialised in vehicle development. Therefore Van Sambeek brought together two established design & engineering agencies: WeLL Design (consumer goods) and Nedtech Engineering (aerospace and turbine engineering). With this cooperation the primary objective to combine high level design, engineering and analysis were realised. Under the leadership of Van Sambeek the companies worked together under the name Modesi, which is a junction of the "Motion" and "Design".

Due to strategic difficulties it was, in well consideration, decided that Modesi continued as an independent company. At the end of 2004 Modesi moved to Eindhoven in order to accommodate the company in the centre of the Dutch automotive sector. From this moment on a team of 10 professionals worked on various development projects. The primary objective to combine styling, engineering and analysis have been retained.