A designer’s designer
Famous for his iconic automobiles, he also turned his attention to watches and pasta
In 1999, a group of 130 automotive journalists and leaders in the industry voted Giorgetto Giugiaro the Car Designer of the Century. It is easy to understand why. Among his creations are some of the most-iconic vehicles ever produced – the Alfa Romeo 2000, DeLorean DMC-12 and Volkswagen Golf. But this designer’s work went beyond the pavement to include some surprising products you might not associate with the world of automobiles. Here are five things you should now about Giugiaro, and his work.
He designed the Alfa Romeo 2000
Born in the small municipality of Garessio, south of Turin in Italy’s Piedmont region, in 1938, Giugiaro didn’t have to look far for inspiration. Both his father, Mario, and grandfather, Luigi, were artists. Mario encouraged his son to try his hand at industrial design, a more lucrative and less-bohemian career path than painting.
Giugiaro enrolled at the Golia design school in Turin where he learned art during the day and technical design — taught by Fiat engineers — at night. Dante Giacosa, Fiat’s technical director, took notice of Giugiaro’s sketches and thought they were promising. At the age of 17, Giugiaro was hired to work with the Turin-based automaker.
Nucio Bertone, of the design house Gruppo Bertone, poached the young prodigy four years later. Bertone asked Giugiaro to come up with a design for a new Alfa Romeo and the resulting sketches were so good, Bertone immediately sold it to the auto manufacturer. That design went on to become Giugiaro’s first car, the Alfa Romeo 2000.
He is responsible for a pop culture icon
Giugiaro was at Gruppo Bertone for six years designing Ferraris, Aston Martins and more Alfa Romeos. He then joined another Italian design firm, Ghia. It was there he would come up with the beautiful and revolutionary DeTomaso Mangusta and Maserati Ghibli; two low slung, wedgeshaped sports cars.
While it was common for designers to focus on the beauty and esthetics of the vehicle, what was designed on paper didn’t always translate well in the real world. This was not how Giugiaro approached design. He looked at design through an engineering lens, and always factored in the feasibility of his creation when it came to the production line. This practicality set him apart.
In 1968, he and Aldo Mantovani founded Italdesign Giugiaro, where he applied those principles to the creation of more than 200 designs, including the Lotus Esprit, Saab 9000, and Subaru SVX. Italdesign was also responsible for the DeLorean DMC-12, which would become a pop culture icon thanks to its role in the “Back to the Future” movie franchise.
He replaced the Beetle
By far the most successful of all his designs is the first-generation Volkswagen Golf, released in 1974. Volkswagen approached Giugiaro and asked him to come up with a replacement for the aging Beetle. He would use his
folded paper design method, inspired by Japanese origami, to come up with a revolutionary shape for the new “people’s car.” His straight edge styling was ahead of its time, and also cheaper to produce than the curvy, flowing designs commonplace to cars in the late1960s and1970s. The Golf’s premiere sent a wave through the industry and influenced car design for the next four decades. With more than 35 million sold, the Golf alone would have solidified Giugiaro’s status as a living legend.
He designed things other than cars
Giugiaro was a prolific designer, including in the non-automotive word. Some of his other work included the Fiat ETR Pendolino commuter train, the promenade in Porto Santo Stefano in Tuscany, a 7000-pipe organ in the Cathedral of Notre Dame of Lausanne in Switzerland, the Nikon F3 camera body, espresso machines for Faema and even a series of watches for Seiko.
One of them, the Seiko 7A28, was worn on screen by protagonist Ellen Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver, in the 1987 movie “Aliens.” Director James Cameron partnered with Italdesign Giugiaro to create watches that were instantly recognizable, but also wouldn’t look out of place on an alien planet in the year 2176.
He even left his mark on the quintessentially Italian food offering: pasta. Voiello, a subsidiary of pasta-giant Barilla, asked Giugiaro to design a new noodle in a shape that it could mass produce. In 1983, Giugiaro’s pasta, called Marille, became the world’s first “designed by a designer” noodle. Its complex curves, inspired by an automobile door gasket, proved difficult to cook, even al dente. Coupled with Barilla’s poor distribution of the pasta, it never really took off and was a flop.
He is still an influence
From cars to trains and even to failed pasta, Giugiaro was a prolific designer whose functional and practical pieces are as good today as they were when first created. The Mk1 Golf GTI that Giguiaro designed is a coveted car and, to some auto connoisseurs, the best ever made.
Italdesign Giugiaro is still active today and employs around 900 people. It was sold to Audi and Lamborghini in 2010. Giugiaro’s influence can still be seen today in the auto industry.
The Hyundai IONIQ 5 – a cuttingedge, retro-futuristic electric vehicle — was inspired by the 1974 Hyundai Pony Coupe Concept, a Giugiaro design that also happened to inspire the DeLorean.
Being honoured with the title of Car Designer of the Century is no small feat, but Giugiaro’s many accomplishments speak for themselves.