Austin A40
Austin A40 Farina
This humble Austin is the least glamorous car in our top ten. And yet, it’s among the carrozzeria’s most significant designs.
In the mid-fifties, BMC wanted to sell into mainland Europe, and producing a car in Italy’s heartland via commercial partners seemed logical. Farina’s design was productionised by August 1958, and by 1959 an agreement had been reached with coachbuilder Innocenti to build the car in Milan in parallel with Longbridge.
Farina sought to address the A35’s shortcomings – lack of space in the rear, and limited luggage capacity. In doing so, he completely rethought the notion of a small car as a shrunkendown version of a larger saloon, instead pairing the increased head- and shoulder-room and versatile fold-flat seating available in estate cars, with the short dimensions of the Austin chassis.
Ferrari 250GT Short Wheelbase
One of the first styling jobs to be overseen by Battista’s son Sergio Pininfarina, the short-wheelbase Ferrari 250GT was also described by Sergio as the carrozzeria’s ‘first quantum leap of Ferrari design’.
Appearing for the first time as a joint presentation by Ferrari and Farina at the Paris Salon, in October 1959, the 250 SWB is an example of how masterfully Farina and coachbuilder Scaglietti could collaborate, especially when directed solely by the demands of Ferrari engineering. The 2400mm wheelbase – reduced from 2600mm on the then-standard 250-series chassis – was created in the name of weight-saving and improved cornering ability. But the car needed to be a dual-purpose machine, capable of fulfilling Nowadays, we call this ‘two-box design’ – one for the engine, another shared by passengers and luggage – and it’s found in everything from the smallest supermini to the most expensive luxury SUV. Although the earliest A40 Farina was available in two body styles – a saloon that presaged the Mini with its folddown bootlid, and a Countryman with a split tailgate – Innocenti had a further innovation to add. In December 1962, in line with changes at Longbridge, the car’s wheelbase was lengthened and the 948cc A-series engine expanded to 1098cc, creating the A40S. However, on its Combinata variant, Innocenti took advantage of the sheet-metal evolutions and combined the split tailgate of the Countryman into a single top-hinged hatch.
It would be incorrect to credit Pininfarina with the creation of the hatchback – that accolade belonged to the 1938 Citroën 11CV Commerciale, although that was marketed as a five-door van rather than a family car. But with a combination of hatch at the rear, two-box construction and reconfigurable interior, all modern hatchbacks owe something of their design to the Austin A40 Farina. the roles of roadgoing sports coupé or devastatingly effective racer with only minimal preparation required.
Scaglietti had engaged in this kind of shrink-wrapped, paring-down process in the preceding years; initially on the groundbreaking 1956 250 Testa Rossa racing car, with its bodylines skimming mere milimetres over the car’s hardpoints, then on the 1957-previewed, 1958-finalised 250GT California Spider, which visited Testa Rossa design and engineering themes on the prim 250 PF Convertible shape to create a roadster capable of competing in the SCCA and beyond, as well as providing Ferrari with a Mercedes 300SL rival.
But the 1959 SWB embodied this minimalizing process even more completely. Not only did the
‘Pinin Farina completely rethought the notion of a small car’