Table of contents for No. 183 in AUTO & DESIGN

Eighty years of style, beauty, innovation and cars. Pininfarina celebrated this milestone in May at its Cambiano plant, in an event attended by more than 400 people. A celebration of a rich heritage, but also of an evolving industrial reality, as president Paolo Pininfarina said: “These eighty years are the end of one chapter and the beginning of another. Our future activities will be founded on the three pillars of design, sustainable mobility and strengthening the brand.” The same day as the celebration was also chosen for the presentation of the new collection and the previously unseen Nido EV prototype. The collection is an exhibition of cars penned by Pininfarina, with forty or so examples of one-off specials and production models from the Cisitalia 202 Berlinetta from 1947 and Alfa…

Strangely, the creators of the car that won the concept and prototype prize at the recent Villa d’Este concours d’elegance claim that it is “not a styling exercise”. Perhaps by saying this, they are remaining faithful to the original spirit of the TZ3 Corsa – Zagato’s tribute celebrating the centenary of the Alfa Romeo brand – and to its racing pedigree. The car is, in fact, a proper racing car that complies fully with regulations for the FIA GT2 class, even though its forays on the track will primarily be in races for gentleman drivers piloted by the man who commissioned the project, car collector Martin Kapp. The car is “a mix of neoclassicism and modernity”, says Andrea Zagato – but, above all, “a tribute to the mechanics, teams and…

After limiting itself to a rather conformist style up until the beginning of the 1950s, Carrozzeria Bertone took a decidedly more radical design direction under the influence of Franco Scaglione. Steered by a designer who was as creative and ingenious as he was reticent and mysterious, Bertone style assumed an original slant, producing astonishing, avant-garde, aerodynamic creations. Franco Scaglione was of course one of the world’s leading designers of the 1950s and ‘60s. While he himself remained an impenetrably enigmatic figure, his body of work is studded with illustrious creations, chief among which the “Berlina Aerodinamica Tecnica” prototypes – otherwise known as the legendary BAT cars. The BAT 5, 7 and 9 were genuine dream cars in the truest sense of what this meant in the 1950s, and were the…

Put into extremely simple terms, “The Dwelling Lab” – an original installation based on the cabin of the new BMW 5 series Gran Turismo – may be explained as a car interior conceived like a garment stitched onto and around the wearer. The result of the initiative devised by BMW and which involved the renowned Danish furniture fabric manufacturer Kvadrat, was presented during the latest edition of Milano Design Week and at the Villa d’Este Concours d’Elegance, and introduced an innovative new way of involving the public, with a three-dimensional set built around the car, almost like an exploded representation of its contents. Patricia Urquiola – one of the most interesting designers in recent years – was entrusted with developing the entire project together with Giulio Ridolfo, an expert designer…

Not just motor cars but mobility in the broad sense. This is the approach to the future according to Volkswagen Group Design and its supremo Walter de’ Silva, leading players on 31 May last in Milan in a double event: the presentation to the Mayor of a taxi concept that pays tribute to the city, and the signing of the cooperation agreement with two prestigious educational institutions, the Milan Polytechnic and the Polytechnic School of Design. The Lombard capital will thus be the workshop for the Milan Mobility programme (lasting five years, starting in October) which will see students and the numerous style centres of the German group occupied in analysing the problems of mobility, and proposing new scenarios and solutions. “It is important to get the man in the…

Milan, Design Week: an event embodying global creativity and putting design – intended in the broadest sense of the word – on display, involving many different sectors from product design to fashion and graphic art. The SPD Design Polytechnic chose this vibrant context as the setting to present the work of its Transportation Design department and the projects produced by its other departments, among which Interior design, Product design, Graphics and Digital communication. This ambitious initiative brings the world of education and the realities of professional design face to face. The exhibition, entitled True Stories, is “design in four acts” (Sunday at the Race, The Light Orchestra, Remastered in Color and Waiting for a guest) conceived by the school’s international students to express their creativity and the commitment of the…

China is the new stage for the car world. While a claim such as this would have seemed absurd at the beginning of the 1990s, or at least too optimistic just ten years ago or so, it has already become an even brighter reality than predicted by the most positive forecasts (and has done so approximately a decade earlier than expected by the world’s leading experts and analysts). Official confirmation of this came in the form of the Beijing Motor Show, which opened its doors on April 23rd this year. “We have more brands at this show than any other motor show in the world”, said organising committee chairman Wang Xia. As always with this nation, the numbers are mind-boggling: 990 models exhibited in over 200,00 square metres of floor…

Design has always played a strategic role when trying to gain a foothold in a new market segment. But if you’re talking about the B segment (or A0 in Germany), and the premium portion of that segment to boot – which has been dominated for years by the Mini – then the designer’s job is even more challenging. Which, however, is precisely what makes it so much more exciting. “Our number one goal was to create a one-hundred percent Audi”, begins Volkswagen Group design chief Walter de’ Silva, making no secret of his creative independence from the directives of the group’s marketing division. “My role is to ensure that each brand has its own identity and strength, and to create trends. So we have always avoided the idea of making…

The series of “Florida” prototypes, which would culminate in the production Lancia Flaminia, began with a two-door coupé. Exhibited for the first time at the Turin Motor Show in April 1955, that coupé already included the distinctive traits that would secure the Flaminia a place in history: the uncluttered trapezoid flanks, traversed midway by a crease creating a contrast of light and shadow, the pillarless side windows, the pontoons extending at an angle behind the C-pillar, and the rear screen sunk between two buttresses. A two-tone blue and white colour scheme served to visually separate the main bodywork and the roof structure. The second Florida was presented at Paris in October 1955. It was similar to the example unveiled at Turin, but had four doors opening onto a pillarless cabin.…

The visual concept for the new G-Energy brand of engine oils for cars and commercial vehicles, manufactured by JSC Gazprom Neft (one of the leading Russian gas and lubricant producers), was developed by Giugiaro Design, which also designed the most distinctive element of all for the end consumer: the bottle. For the new range of synthetic and semi-synthetic oils developed to meet the highest automotive industry standards and produced at the Gazprom Neft-Lubricants plant in Bari, a four-litre container has been created that combines the indispensable requisites for usability with a design expressing the concept of dynamism and power typical of the car world. In addition to the modelled shape of the bottle itself, the design of the functional handle was also a fundamental aspect of the project. The label,…

The new generation Toyota Auris presented a few months ago, gains an HDS hybrid version, bringing the Japanese carmaker’s tried and tested technology into the C segment. This is the most competitive, highest volume market segment in Europe, which – according to Toyota’s marketing execs – is where the image of a brand is built. An exhaustive road test of the new car in the area around Barcelona and in the traffic of the Catalan capital confirmed the validity of the formula first introduced by the Prius, which this new model joins as part of Toyota’s drive to have a full hybrid version of each of its models by the end of 2010. However, this was not simply a matter of transplanting Prius technology into the Auris. The actual structure…

This May 25, Italdesign Giugiaro became a design and development centre of the Volkswagen Group, when the German carmaker bought 90.1 percent of the company founded in 1968 by Giorgetto Giugiaro and Aldo Mantovani. This was a move that surprised the auto world, even though there has been a long history of collaboration between Moncalieri and Wolfsburg, which had intensified in recent years to culminate in the definition of an outline agreement in 2008 as a prelude to the buy-out. According to VW Group president Martin Winterkorn, this is a strategic step in achieving the goal of becoming the world’s major automotive manufacturer by 2018, by increasing annual sales from the current 6 million mark to 10 million. “We have so many projects for our many brands and for all…

Under the impetus of Luigi Segre, who became commercial director of the company in 1950, Carrozzeria Ghia evolved into a major concern. Now a fully fledged industrial entity, Ghia began looking for long term partners, establishing ongoing relations with brands such as Chrysler, Renault and Volkswagen. On a creative level, Ghia also started producing numerous styling exercises to draw attention to itself in an era in which all Italian coachbuilders were creating designs to capture the world’s imagination. While Virgil Exner was in charge of designing show cars and the Ghia specials created for Chrysler, Mario Savonuzzi applied his aerodynamic theories to cars with almost spaceship-like futuristic forms. Mario Felice Boano, who took Ghia over from Giacinto Ghia in 1947, put his son Gianpaolo Boano to work in the company…

The official figures for the 49th edition of the Milan furniture fair testify to an increase in the number of visitors representing both the professional sector – with almost 300,000 in total – and the general public (over 300,000). These encouraging numbers demonstrate how the Milan show is still the most important of its kind in the world, even though the sector’s current problems are no secret. Just a few days after the expo opened, Rosario Messina, president of FederlegnoArredo, said that after last year, which was “the worst our industry has ever experienced”, businesses need more than ever to keep on investing in research and innovation. In other terms, this means that they need to keep following the path trodden for years by the more farsighted companies, which reconciles…

You buy a car because it appeals to you. But then you have to live in it, so the original seduction of its forms must be supplanted by something more convincing. This is why the design of an interior is such a delicate and challenging part of a project. This very topic was discussed at the 2nd national “Vehicle Interior” convention organised in Turin this April by the ATA. As Fiat Group design director Lorenzo Ramaciotti remarked, the automobile is a complex industrial object in which engineering, science and psychology coexist. It is also a family’s most expensive purchase after buying a house, and it is precisely for this reason that its interior must express a certain level of lifestyle, bringing together numerous functions and materials as well as style,…

“Moto Guzzi: Una storia importante” (Moto Guzzi: A rich history) is the slogan chosen by the legendary Italian motorcycle manufacturer to embody the values of its 89 years of existence and of the 50-plus models it has produced to date. This rich history is the reason why IED Turin chose the brand as the subject of a year long project conducted by the second year students in the three year post-diploma course in Transportation Design – BYT (Bike, Yacht and Train) Design. The marque with the spread-wing eagle emblem (adopted in memory of the Italian motorcyclist and aviator Giovanni Ravelli, who was among the original founders of the company) was chosen for its traditions as a technical and stylistic innovator, as well as for its significant emotive value and ability…

If it is true that history should leave a lesson to learn from, a trace lingering through time so that it may not be forgotten, then the 8C Smeriglio and 8C Scaglione are perfect examples of this belief put into effect. While the products of two different creators, the two concepts, presented at the “Il senso dell’idea” Convention hosted at Calenzano on April 22nd to celebrate the centenary of Alfa, both had the same purpose: to reproduce the typical character of the Alfa Romeo brand, which has always stood for advanced technology, design, sportiness and appeal. The inspiration for both projects was the current 8C Competizione, and it was this car’s continuity with Alfa’s past – it very clearly cites both the Alfa 33 Stradale by Scaglione and the Zagato…