Auto Design

 ”Gandini is fantastic. Unbeatable when it comes to creating way-out sportcar with overpowering aggression: some of his coupes seem to bite the ground even when they are standing still. With the Renault Superfive he gave a demonstration of detail work, the refinement of an existing concept. An impeccable job worthy of a miniaturist: the little Renault rings with class”.
This words were written in 1989 and are not from a critic or a friend but from his thoughest rival and competitor: Giorgetto Giugiaro, the most acclaimed car designer in the world for the past two decades. At that time Giugiaro had already seen the Gandini’s Cizeta V16T but not the Lamborghini Diablo yet.

Like Giugiaro, Marcello Gandini is a self-made man who has designed his way of style to suit  his own  pattern.  He is relaxed, quiet and perfectly fit.

His residence and studio are within Villa Gran Vigna that was first built in the 17th century on a sloping green hillside some 20 miles from Turin’s city center.

They called him “the secret man”,  but  hen I set to “deeply discover” Gandini I did not believe it.

Now,  I must concede I was wrong. The man is extremely gentle,  generous and  never refused  a visit of mine. His defense is to let people know the least about him and anyway he does not like to  talk  about his  past jobs and glories. He is focused on the future, not the past. Indeed he only  likes  to moderately talk of the present  and  the  near future.  However his conversation can go on for hours on any other  subject, and it is a great pleasure to listen to him, even though, as Steve Cropley  wrote  “he  would rather think than talk”.

You  soon  discover  he  is a man that  has  a  special,  discreet charisma and acute intelligence. A man who love  to  speak  (and think) ironically. A man who likes a bit mystery, because that  is what stimulate imagination and creativity.

Marcello  Gandini is undoubtedly the world’s greatest designer  of supercars,  having  produced more superlative cars  for  Maserati, Lamborghini and Ferrari than anyone else. But  Gandini’s  talent  is wider and richer than that  of  a  mere supercar designers. He has devised convincing industrial  products and manufacturing processes, and has some excellent and  practical family and saloon  cars, for Audi, BMW,  Citroen and Renault to his credit.

The dispute about who actually designed the Lamborghini Miura has never been fully resolved but here is what Gandini once said about that project: “”The Miura was very like a Giugiaro car in some detail,” Gandini admits. “Its lines were quite soft and it had similarities to cars he had done previously – the Maserati Ghibli, De Tomaso Mangusta and Iso Grifo. But what shows my stamp, I feel, is the effort to make the car into an integrated shape, not just a top and a bottom, as so many cars of the time had. The side-scoops, in particular, were intended to give the car a kind of global shape”.

There is no argument on many other dramatically innovative design works such as the Alfa Romeo Carabo, the Lancia Stratos and the Lamborghini Countach. Show-cars, prototypes and production cars.

The list? Would be too long and never complete (all the secret projects for carmakers would be missing). Let’s just go back with memory and recall the Autobianchi Runabout and the Fiat X1/9. The Lamborghini Espada, Bravo and eventually the Diablo and the Cizeta V16T. The Ferrari 308 GT4.

Click on the image to see just some of his works.