Auto Design

The Concorso d’Eleganza di Villa d’Este this years has been as good as the weather. That is to say that half of it was very good, with peaks of excellence, and the remaining half was bad, raining and boring, with touches of ugliness.

 By the end of the elegant week-end on the Lake of Como, one would say it was not one the best edition ever but still offered enough interesting cars to look at, people to greet and talk to, and subjects to discuss.

As such it was one not to be missed. Those who did not attend it missed the extremely rare chance of hearing the sibilo and smelling the pollution of its turbine engine, not to mention seeing this extraordinary visualisation of the dreams about the cars of the future they were dreaming in the fifties and sixties.

Two other rare visions were the 1964 Prince Skyline Sport and the BMW GINA. The Prince is one of the many cars styled by the great Giovanni Michelotti and a two door luxury car called coupé built by coachbuilder Allemano.

BMW Gina is too famous to need further description. What was new is the fact that we saw it outdoor and in motion.

There were also irrelevant cars that I shall leave to you to detect identify and some lovely example of romantic and passionate design of the past, beatiful examples of simple and yet outstanding design that will also speak of natural elegance in contrast with cars (of past and today) that are simply overdone.

I have many stories to tell from the past week-end to share with you: about the Design Talk which failed to give a convincing and to the point answer to the question if “Modesty is the new Luxury” simply because modesty is an attitudine and luxury is a rather undefined opinion.

An interesting exhibition of wind cheating and record breaking “streamlined” cars of past times. The story of several concept cars, with Mindset being one of the most controversial and interesting. Unfortuately a dear friend of our family has passed away today and my wife and I have to fly to Torino for the last farewell. This means that I will not be back to my desk for few days and fast enough withmy reports. In the meantime I can offer you a preview of many pictures I produced and collected for you.

To see them click on the images for the related photo galleries. (work in progress)