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THE QUIET REVOLUTION­ARY

Pushing automobile design boundaries with Marcello Gandini

- by James Nicholls

Paying a visit to the Museo Nazionale dell’Automobile di Torino, the Italian National Motor Museum – Mauto, as it is colloquial­ly known – is a veritable treat. To do so when there is a special exhibition on one of the greatest Italian car designers, Marcello Gandini, and to meet the great man himself doubly so.

The son of an orchestra conductor, Marcello Gandini was born on 26 August 1938, in Turin, the birthplace of Italian motoring. Of his childhood, he says, “I am the son of a composer and director of past times. Since children never want to do what their parents did, they always try to take different roads, I too [wanted to try something new]…I dedicated myself to cars and design and this caused my father some grief. When I was four I started

playing the piano, and I had to exercise for years all the time at the piano, but I did not like it at all.”

Upon meeting the dapper 80-year-old, now troubled by a bad back, it is hard to image that he has been responsibl­e for some of the greatest automobile designs of all time – until one talks to him, that is.

Gandini has designed supercars and saloons, utility and sports vehicles, motorcycle­s, pushbikes, trucks, and even helicopter­s. To do justice to all that this incredible designer has achieved would require a very large tome, so we will simply limit ourselves to the marvelous and amazing creations from his golden period of the late 1960s through the 1970s.

A creative revolution begins

The Carrozzeri­a G Bertone was founded in

1921 and was an already successful coach builder, producing bodies for Maserati, Alfa Romeo, Ferrari et al, when Gandini succeeded Giorgetto Giugiaro as chief designer in 1965. For Gandini, Bertone was a big influence on him as a designer, particular­ly in how he designed. Bertone designed the Citroen DS and this had a profound impact on the young designer. “I particular­ly like the fact that it is one of the few cars that has been constructe­d freely, not at all worrying about marketing, product placement, no worries about technician­s involved, costs…as a matter of fact it almost caused [Citroen] to go bankrupt. But what is exceptiona­l about this car is the fact that for once, the designer could really do what he had in mind. That is important, isn’t it?”

Gandini’s first opportunit­y at Bertone was the Lamborghin­i Miura (see accompanyi­ng story, Memories in a Miura, pp52-53), which embodied the Swinging Sixties. Gandini provided the car’s iconic chassis design and mechanical­s that were built by car designers and engineers, Dellara, Stanzani and Bizzarini. Gandini styled this “shock of the new” automobile, which immediatel­y dumbfounde­d – and was desired by – everyone who saw it. With the Miura, Gandini was hailed as a designer for a new era of motorcars. The boy, whose interest in all things mechanical had begun when he was given a set of Meccano as a gift, had dreamt up one of the most enduring motoring icons of the 20th century, but that was only the start.

Upending the expected

In 1969, the Bertone Runabout was presented during the Turin Motor Show. Inspired by racing speedboats of the period, it would in turn become the Fiat X1/9 and the Lancia Stratos. The previous year in Paris, the Alfa Romeo Carabo, perhaps the most extreme of all wedge-line designs pioneered by Gandini, was shown, its arrow-shaped body a mainstream element of car design ever since.

The designer would go on to produce the Lamborghin­i Espada, a Muira crossed with a family saloon, though unlike any family saloon that had ever been seen before, with its ground clearance of just 119cm and its 12-cylinder engine limited to “only” 240 km/h. The maestro also designed the Montreal, an Alfa Romeo that had echoes of the Miura. The Montreal prototype was presented in 1967 at Canada’s Expo Montreal. Nuccio Bertone said that it was created to satisfy “the maximum aspiration reached by man when it comes to creating cars.” Gandini’s prototype is even more glorious than the production model, preserving the lightness and proportion­s of the original drawings and lending support to Bertone’s lofty claims.

 ?? Images courtesy of the author, Lamborghin­i Motor Centre archives and Museo Nazionale dell’Automobile di Torino ?? On display at the Italian National Motor Museum are cars designed by Marcello Gandini, one of the greatest Italian car designers of our time
Images courtesy of the author, Lamborghin­i Motor Centre archives and Museo Nazionale dell’Automobile di Torino On display at the Italian National Motor Museum are cars designed by Marcello Gandini, one of the greatest Italian car designers of our time
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 ??  ?? FROM TOP TO BOTTOM: Lamborghin­i Marzal, Lamborghin­i Miura, BMW Garmisch, Lancia Stratos Zero
FROM TOP TO BOTTOM: Lamborghin­i Marzal, Lamborghin­i Miura, BMW Garmisch, Lancia Stratos Zero

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