Auto Design

From Giancarlo Perini.

Sergio Pininfarina, a truly honourable member “for life” of the Italian Senate and a legendary figure of the Italian design and sports cars history has passed away last night (July 4th, 2012) at his home in Torino. He was 85.

Sergio Pininfarina was not elected Senator but was appointed, just like current Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti, for his merits by the president of the Italian republic. In 2005.

Through his crystal clear life and career Sen. Pininfarina was elected member of the European Parliament and awarded the most prestigious awards by nations around the world, such as

The French Légion d’Honneur, Honorary Royal Designer for Industry, Foreign member of the Swedish Royal Academy of Engineering science and Automotive Hall of Fame in Dearborn, Michigan (2007) and Geneva (2008), but he was primarily the leader of the Italian design temple established by his father Pinin Farina and known world-wide with the Pininfarina name.

But he primarily was known and revered for his leadership in Italian design, following in the footsteps of his father, Pinin Farina, who established the Pininfarina name worldwide and helped make Italy synonymous with automotive styling leadership.

With him, Italian design and Italy loose a real Maestro.

When Pinin Farina reached a life-long co-operation agreement with Enzo Ferrari, it was his son Sergio who was appointed to ensure the success of the new alliance. Sergio Pininfarina delivered much more than that and today the Ferrari-Pininfarina is seen as a unique brand association worldwide.

Not a designer himself but quite a creative entrepreneur with a strong will and the elegance of a gentleman, he brought his company to the highest peak in the automotive design and coach-building business. He signed off most of the greatest Ferrari successes, built many successful sport cars for the carmakers around the world and created iconic design for Alfa Romeo, Cadillac, Fiat, Lancia, Peugeot and Rolls-Royce.

Under his direction Pininfarina designers created dream cars such as the Ferrari Modulo and the Ferrari Dino 206 C Competizione, and turned dreams into reality with the Alfa Romeo Spider and Duetto, the Fiar 124 Spider, a number of Peugeots, from the 403 to the 406 through the 504 and the 205; as well as their coupé and cabriolet derivatives. The Ferrari is a story apart. In more than half a century Pininfarina has created superlative sports cars that are legendary.

“An exceptional person, who connected his name indissolubly with our history and our success,” Ferrari Chairman Luca di Montezemolo said in a  public statement, adding: “Sergio was one of the most important advocates of ‘Made in Italy’ all over the world, a man who gave Italy credibility and splendor.

“Calling his relation with Ferrari legendary is not enough. First with Enzo (Ferrari) and then with me, he planned some of the most iconic models, such as the Testarossa or the Enzo, just to name two.”

Harald Wester, CEO of Maserati, says Sergio Pininfarina, who oversaw design of the current Quattroporte in 2003 “was the force behind the return of the Pininfarina design on contemporary Maseratis. His place in automotive history is assured and huge.”

Paolo Martin, famous world-wide for just some of his many mythical designs of supercars, yachts, bikes and more has accepted to talk to young design in the “West meets East” Design Conference in Zagreb this week-end.

Martin is the designer who performer several one-man-show when creating stunning cars such as the Pininfarina F1 Sigma Grand Prix and the Pininfarina Ferrari Modulo and a number of Dino concept cars, including the yellow “Berllinetta” (actually named Dino Competizione) now owned by the famous enthusiast James Glickenhaus in New York.

For additional information about the Zagreb Automotive Design Conference go to: http://www.automotivedesignconference.com/

Martin will recall how he built the full scale Modulo during the summer holidays and how his project had to compete with the alternative proposal of Filippo Sapino for the Ferrari 512 S. Both show cars were eventually approved by Sergio Pininfarina and his broche in law, Renzo Carli. Both were outstanting successes.

Martin will also present his Modulo II design, based on the Ferrari Enzo and will be open to questions from the audience.

Over more than fifty years, Martin has worked for Michelotti, Bertone, Pininfarina, De Tomaso, Fiat, Nissan, BMW, Subaru, Piaggio, Gilera, Ferretti and Dassault Aviation.

A commentary.

In the mid-sixties, the Milanese Inter foot-club was dominating the scene in Europe, under the leadership of coach Helenio Herrera and the ownership of Angelo Moratti. Herrera had a lot of talent and a simple, pragmatic strategy: buy all the best players, even if he could not use all of them. Read the rest of this entry »

by Enrico Leonardo Fagone.

“The automobile today is an individual means of transport within a complex system of collective transport. The relations within such a system can­not be ignored. The individual means of transport has to submit to the constraints imposed by the system. This implies a form of transport that fulfils certain fun­ctions: hence a functional vehicle. The designers of car bodies are clearly faced with new structures, new tasks: scienti­fic and technological evolution is a stimu­lus but at the same time a warning not to remain anchored to the positions of the past and present.” (Pio Manzù)

Read the rest of this entry »

Auto(r) 2010 automotive design conference

20-21March, Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb.

This is the report that Daniel Tomicic, promoter and organiser of the Conference, has been so kind to write for our blog. I hope the speakers and attendees will submit their manuscripts and comments to continue the stimulating dialogues sparked by the Conference. All photograph are from Laurent Nivalle.

Auto(r) is new automotive design conference that started last year in Zagreb, Croatia. It is the biggest event of its kind in Europe 2009 and 2010. Idea behind Auto(r) is to popularise automotive design to wide audience and not automotive professionals only. That is done by promotion of automotive designers as creative individuals equal to other product designers. Event name is a play of words auto and author in Croatian. Read the rest of this entry »

The 100th anniversary year of the Audi brand is set to culminate with a very special occasion. November 30 sees the world premiere of the new Audi A8 – in the extraordinary setting of Miami. Here, the brand’s new flagship will be presented in a truly innovative way in the Audi Pavilion, a temporary museum structure.

The purpose built Audi Pavilion is to be the focal point of the vernissage of “The Art of Progress”.

This is an exhibition of cultural and technological progress designed to establish a link between the works of arts on display and the values of the new A8 claims, Vorsprung durch Technik (progress through technique) as usual and design expertise that stirs the emotions.

Audi will present its brand flagship at Design Miami 2009 to an audience of design experts from all over the world, only one day after the world premiere of the new Audi A8 on November 30 to international media representatives, flown in on chartered airplanes from all corners of the globe.

Both the premiere as part of the exhibition “The Art of Progress” in the Audi Pavilion and the premiere for the general public with the stand at Design Miami illustrate how Audi, in line with the brand motto “Vorsprung durch Technik”, is going down a new, innovative path with the new Audi A8.

Commenting on the ultimate Audi flagship, Rupert Stadler, Chairman of the Board of Management of AUDI AG, said that: “The Audi A8 is the flagship of our brand. It stands for everything we are capable of at Audi. Our aim was to get as close as possible to the perfect automobile.”

With its design the A8 represents a new step on Audi’s route towards being an unmistakable signature brand. A particular feature of the Audi A8 are the LED headlights, which not only increase efficiency and safety, but also give the sedan a one-of-a-kind appearance. Furthermore, the lightweight expertise in the brand’s new top-of-the-range model was consistently advanced and raised to cutting-edge technological standards in order to counter the weight spiral.

As we wait for the cars, let’s have a look at the works of art selected to reflect Audi’s Art of Progress.

At this time it is interesting to take a good look to the design and the making of the SVS Codatronca by Ercole and Paolo Spada. This spectacular supercar – built on the chassis – and with the powertrain – of one of the most powerful Chevrolet Corvette might well serve as a benchmark for the evalutation of the Supercar soon to be unveiled in mock-up form at the Shanghai Motor Show and as a running prototype at the Concorso d’Eleganza di Villa D’Este, later this month.

The two cars share a lot in addition to their mission and ambitions: attract car collectors with a passion for high performance speed and clear cut, very distinctive design.

The SVS Codatronca TS comes with a Chevrolet Corvette ZR 1 V8 engine tuned up to deliver 630 HP at 7000 rpm and 668 Nm of torque at 4800 rpm. This is said to be good enough for acceleration time of just 3.4 second from 0 to 100 kph and a top speed of 340 kph in 6^th gear, at 7000 rpm.

Unlike the Stile Bertone supercar, which aims at setting a new record at the Nuerburgring, the SVS Codatronca has been designed and tuned to enhance “the pleasure of driving instead of speed record, in the perfect style of the gentleman driver.”

The other remarkable difference between the two is that whereas Stile Bertone and Jason Castriota made extensive use of carbon fibre for their bodywork, the Spada (Father & Son) elected the traditional aluminium body panels technique for the construction of their Codatronca. Here, a review of the making of the SVS Codatronca TS and few images of the actual car.

Click on image for complete photo gallery:    

It looks funny and you are right in asking yourself how such a small car can pull such a big Trailer with the iconic look and brand such as Airstream. You need not to worry though. On one side the Mini Cooper S Clubman is small but has muscles enough to deliver 172 HP, the Airstream trailer is not that big, and it is all-aluminium, lighter than you may think of. Read the rest of this entry »

In recent years, Mitsubishi has been dominating the World Rally Championship series and subsequently worldwide Rally Raids the most famous of which is the Paris-Dakar. The continued success of the Mitsubishi Pajero (replaced this year by the Lancer Sport) have inspired the company designers and actually stimulated their imagination. Here comes their view for 2025: the Mitsubishi MMR 25, a vehicle that clearly breaks from convention.That is not just for its shocking look but also for its concept of a multi-terrain, omnidirectional vehicles. To this aim the MMR 25 wheels comes with eight independently-controlled motors each, allowing for “8 x 4” wheel drive so that the car can be driven forward while pointing in any direction. The MMR25 drives sideways into a corner and points the nose of the car outwards before even reaching the apex of the curve while driving sideways or backwards. The MMR25 also uses special Oblique Aerodynamics to give the vehicle aero advantages. The centre wing acts as a spoiler, actuated by pneumatic and fabricated from Memory Metal Alloy while the front and rear spoilers double as suspension blades that are able to control stiffness and ride height.Designer:Jon Hull – Design, surfacing, rendering and animation.

Photo Gallery:

From the designers of Alfa Romeo and the students of Espera Sbarro School of Automotive.

Among the too many show-cars unveiled at the past Geneva Motor Show there was this “Alfa Romeo Diva”. The running prototype has been conceived and developed by Elasis, a high-ranking research and development centre based in Italy and owned by Fiat. (Elsais is the company that first developed and engineered the Common Rail fuel injection technology. The managing director of the company is Ing. Nevio di Giusto who has been Director of Design for the Fiat Auto group and subsequently was in charge of Engineering at Fiat Auto.)Diva was first exhibited on the Sbarro area, among several other cars built by the Italian genius and his teams.  Indeed the Alfa Romeo Diva has been built by the international team of students attending Franco Sbarro’s Espera school of automotive design and construction located at Yverdon, Switzerland. The design came from the Centro Stile Alfa Romeo. Read the rest of this entry »