Giugiaro set up Italdesign with a partner, Aldo Mantovani, in 1968, after leaving Ghia. The DMC DeLorean (often referred to simply as the "DeLorean") is a sports car and the only automobile manufactured by John DeLorean's DeLorean Motor Company (DMC) for the American market from 1981 to 1983. That powerplant was in fact born of Ferrari's need for a small-capacity unit to comply with homologation requirements, and it gifted the pretty Fiat with an exquisite soundtrack. They painted frescoes and decorative paintwork on churches and palaces, and as a little kid in Garessio, Giugiaro hung around with them, watching. Giugiaro, however, likes to think of himself as an engineer: his first drawings are always within the measurements and proportions of a brief. We drive away from the HQ, through wooded hills to the GFG Style offices, where a collection of his cars sit glistening in a showroom. What they did was hard: the surfaces were uneven, and often curved, so they had to make allowances for that as they painted Madonnas, heavenly and pastoral scenes. Through Italdesign, Giorgetto designed a huge number of mass-production cars, including popular models owned by brands such as Alfa Romeo, BMW, Ferrari, Ford, Lamborghini or Maserati. The engineers protested, but he reeled off more figures, and when they were checked, he was correct. Are Apple’s New AirPods Max Worth The Wait? Displayed as a prototype in November 1966 and put on sale the following year, the sensational Maserati Ghibli was the epitome of the thoroughbred late-'60s Italian grand tourer. After explaining that Volkswagen’s initial plans for the new car were to be based on the recently released Fiat 128, the engineers told him they’d taken apart a 128 to work out measurements for their model. Back then, the city lived with the rhythm of car production lines, and new ideas flew back and forth. When you see a beautiful woman, you think about the possibilities! Fiat Panda. “Before those days,” Giugiaro recalls, “the engineers had really done the design, but now industrial was coming in and we’d give engineers ideas for solving problems, so then they could create new products and systems for us to create something with, and so it went on.”. He talks about more possibilities: new plastics that allow so many shapes for the nose of the car, LED lights that will display different colours, patterns and images inside and out. Giugiaro would leave Bertone after six years to join another Italian coachbuilder, Ghia, where he styled cars for DeTomaso and Maserati. He was given the Testudo project when General Motors commissioned Bertone to produce a more interesting, sporty version of their popular but plain Chevrolet Corvair. That would mean different kinds of cars, not just saloons, estate cars and two-seater sportsters. Is there a secret guy who designed some of Giugiaro's great cars like the Bizzarrini Strada? He was born in Garessio, Cuneo, Piedmont. Aston Martin DB4GT Jet (cont.) From joining famed design house Bertone at 21, to his stint at Ghia, to establishing his own studio, ItalDesign, in 1968, Giugiaro’s career was a hit list of incredible achievements. Even now, as you drive through the city and Moncalieri, it’s striking how often you find yourself passing, say, a huge Fiat plant, and the compounds of legendary companies like Pininfarina or Bertone. He was born in Garessio, Cuneo, Piedmont. As a teenager, Giorgetto Giugiaro dreamt of being an artist. Art is art and a car “is an engineered product”. It also allowed Giugiaro to work in other fields and he turned his favoured blue pencil to hundreds of different items from cameras, watches and sewing machines to trains and football stadia. But that’s it, it’s just a drawing unless you think about what the engineers have to do to make it real. Without it, there may never have been the Lamborghini Miura or Ferrari Daytona — and the Porsche 928 was essentially a late Seventies cover version. In 1972, Lotus took the show in Turin with the Esprit concept, the first of Giugiaro's "folded paper" design cars. L’année 2009 marque un tournant. Unveiled at the 1970 Turin show, the Tapiro marked the arrival of a theme that would become a hallmark of Giugiaro’s work throughout the ’70s: the wedge. From Bertone, Giugiaro moved to Ghia, another designer and coachbuilder, where he designed, among others, the Ghibli and the De Tomaso Mangusta (David Carradine’s car in Kill Bill: Volume 2, and Kylie Minogue’s in the “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” video). Interestingly, he and his … It was very, very low: its headlights were embedded in the bonnet (he thinks the upward tilt of the lights is what prompted the UFO scare) and there were no doors, just a glass half-dome cockpit that hinged up to let you in. There would be a succession of affordable but well-designed models, like the Fiat Panda (conceived as the car “equivalent of a pair of jeans”), Fiat Punto (1993), Seat Ibiza (1984) and Alfa Romeo’s earlier influential AlfaSud (1971). The Mangusta's showstopping party piece was a pair of massive, centrally hinged clamshell doors that rose to provide access to the engine in the most extravagant possible manner. Body design had become important to cars almost as soon as they went mass-market in the Twenties and Thirties, as manufacturers realised they could create a fashion cycle of near-constant updates without re-engineering the whole car. Inside Saint Laurent's Ridiculously Stylish Home, The Greatest Sports Documentaries Of All Time, 11 Of The Best-Designed Products Of All Time, The (Real) Greatest Video Games Of All-Time. But it was the aggressive lines, penned during Giugiaro’s brief tenure at Ghia, that endowed it with the kind of crowd-pleasing drama that would soon become a prerequisite of every supercar worth its name. You can see the origami look in a convoy of key-droppingly handsome motors conceived on Italdesign desks in the Seventies and Eighties, including the Esprit, BMW’s autobahn-eating M1 in 1978 (“really an evolution from the Mangusta”), the stainless steel (“it was really just to save money on the paint”) DeLorean in 1981, and the third-generation Audi 80 in 1978. The press who saw the Testudo at the 1963 Geneva Motor Show thought it looked like a masterpiece. Working on a successor, CEO Kurt Lotz had sent a team to the Turin Auto Show to choose the six best designs, and invite the designers in for interviews. “No,” he says, taking his hands from the spaceship-like steering wheel and slapping his thighs. In fact, there has been a revival both in his work and in interest among fans. But you will rent different kinds of car for different occasions. The mid-engined BMW M1, launched in 1979, featured glass fibre bodywork designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro and was intended as a track racing car – only 453 were built Benedict Redgrove The Wedge Era in car design was characterized by angular aesthetic, such as the world-famous Lamborghini Countach, and Giugiaro pioneered this technique with his “ origami period “, dominated by sharp and edges. Designed by Giugiaro when he was working for the Italian styling house Ghia (later bought by Ford), the Mangusta was the predecessor to the far more high-profile Pantera. Designed by legendary stylist Giorgetto Giugiaro while working at Ghia, the 117 Coupé was first revealed in 1966 at Geneva as a prototype. Unlike most of his peers, this designer had an obsessive interest in technical detail and an incredible memory. Through the Eighties, Nineties and Noughties, Italdesign retained close relationships with Volkswagen, Fiat and Far East manufacturers. “The younger generation maybe don’t care about appearances quite as much, and they have more kinds of love. Giugiaro, working in a new company, GFG Style, established with his son Fabrizio, has risen to the challenge, reviving the Sixties and Seventies practice of producing mad, exciting, thought-provoking, concept cars for the new, teched-up, eco-friendly era. At 21, he was headhunted by legendary designer and car builder Nuccio Bertone to join his coachworks (as a test exercise, Bertone set him the task of drawing a new Alfa Romeo: it was so good, Bertone eventually sold it to Alfa). His father, however, seeing the obvious talent, warned him off art and sent him to Turin to study rendering, costume design and technical drawing, which would teach him to work in three dimensions — something he felt would be more profitable than two. He explains why he thinks electric power and technology, rather than making cars more boring, will reinvent them for the better. In a 60-year career, the maestro of motors has designed 200 models with sales of more than 60 million. “In the future,” he says, moving forward in his seat and gesticulating in time-honoured Italian style, “I think cars will be shared more. This sublime Anglo-American GT was only Giugiaro's second assignment at Bertone – given to the Italian just three months after he joined the styling house from Fiat – and became his first to be revealed at an international motor show, debuting at Geneva in 1960 as the Gordon GT. As for the shell, Giugiaro once described its shape as being an evolution of many cars that he had designed previously but, given present company, that's no bad thing. In the end, GM did not put it into production, but it had a vast influence, a sort of car version of The Beach Boys’ Smile album. If there is a single piece of design genius he’s most likely to be remembered for, it’s a steel rather than dough-based one. He walks me around it, and the enthusiasm and the hands move into top gear. Launched in 1963, it was intended to be a coachbuilt special, but when Nuccio Bertone showed the car's shape to the Milanese bigwigs they were determined that it should go into volume production. The car was designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro and stood out for its gull-wing doors and brushed stainless-steel outer body panels. They were showing him the engine compartment when he interrupted. Techrules Ren (2017): Designed by Giorgetto and Fabrizio Giugiaro . It made him appreciate the genius of the original pasta designers in the 19th century, and the interest people take in pasta. Malcolm Griffiths/Classic & Sports Car. It’s big — 5m long — and, like the Testudo, has a glass dome roof that slides forward to let you in: Giugiaro once said of his concept designs that “dream cars are the best”, and the Sibylla is proof. Among his many era-defining cars are the DeLorean (Back to the Future) and Lotus Esprit (The Spy Who Loved Me), as well as mass-market models like the Fiat Panda and a set of concept cars that are still reference points for other designers. 17 Mar 2015 Car Designer Giorgetto Giugiaro on Comfort, Curves and Drawing Tools Giugiaro would eventually own a GT himself, but the young designer could only afford to buy one three years after it went on sale. Italian designer Giorgetto Giugiaro has created some of the most successful and influential cars in history, in an impressive career that spans over six decades. Alas, it wasn’t to be: just one look at the young Italian’s watercolours in 1955 led to a job offer from Fiat. Similarly, the corrugated lower panels were repeated in the interior pressings, eliminating the need for trim and thus reducing costs – and it was a similar story with the flat glass and single wiper. In design terms, the really clever thing was that it was still recognisably based on the Corvair. One of the best-selling cars in automotive history, with 33m sales under its fan belt, the VW Golf (renamed the Rabbit in the US and Caribe in Mexico) would help the engineers of Wolfsburg to become the biggest carmakers on the planet. Engineers then have to do the hard work to turn it into something viable, which is one reason they typically despise designers and stylists. In addition to cars, Giugiaro has designed camera bodies for Nikon, computer prototypes for Apple, and developed a new pasta shape “Marille”. Volkswagen was in trouble. “But they also must be able to see what you are evolving from. The car industry is going through strange times: electric and self-driving vehicles are becoming more important, the billionaire market can sustain small-run, innovative, hyper-luxury models, and some pundits argue millennials are more interested in car clubs and rentals than ownership. He is by general consent the world’s greatest living car designer, arguably the greatest to have ever lived: in a 60-year career he has designed 200 models with sales of more than 60m, and in 1999 a panel of respected international journalists and car industry leaders voted him “Car Designer of the Century”. If the change is too great and we don’t understand the evolution, that’s when something can look ugly.”. “Yes, quite a success in the end,” says Giorgetto Giugiaro, leaning forward on a deep, traditional white sofa in the offices of his architectural practice in Moncalieri, just south of Turin. As for the styling, that sharp-edged, dart-like profile offered an early hint at the direction Giugiaro’s work would take in the 1970s, but the long and almost impossibly low nose – combined with the squat roof and shapely tail – bestowed it with a truly timeless elegance that's still captivating today. “But it ends up being depressing.”. When Detroit Designers Drove American Car Culture, Record Players That Will Make You Love Vinyl Again, Honda's Crosstar Jazz Is Music to Our Ears, Apple AirPods Are On Sale for Black Friday, Richard Benson, Photographs by Benedict Redgrove, ESQUIRE, PART OF THE HEARST UK FASHION & BEAUTY NETWORK. 1982 Italdesign ‘Capsula’ Magnificent, isn’t it? I wonder, given that he’s already achieved a fair bit, if he doesn’t feel like he’s done enough and could just relax? People in marketing say millennials and Generation Z aren’t as concerned as their parents were with showing off material possessions, but he is sceptical about that. Surely one of the most glamorous Aston Martins ever built, the DB4GT Jet was Giugiaro’s second show car for Bertone and made its debut at the Geneva Salon in 1961, appearing again at Turin later that year. The Fiat Dino proved that Giugiaro was equally as adept at wonderfully understated subtlety as he was at delivering jaw-dropping drama with his supercars. 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