PININFARINA LOOKS AHEAD
Students from institutions all over the world, including Coventry University and the Royal College of Art, have been challenged by Pininfarina to design ‘a positive way of moving and living,’ offering a six-month internship. See designcontest.pininfarina.com
Former Lotus, Jaguar and TVR designer Oliver Winterbottom died on 6 November, aged 76.
Although he found fame during his time at Lotus, it was with Jaguar that Winterbottom served his engineering apprenticeship and kick-started his career.
“On a tour of the factory, I saw the soon-to-be-launched E-type,” he told Mike Taylor in the July 2017 C&SC. “Immediately, there was a strong mental connection. The knave plate and face-level ventilation control for the XJ6 were both my designs, and went into production without change.”
In Coventry, he with Malcolm Sayer designed the stillborn XJ21.
Mike Kimberley of Lotus Cars, also formerly of Jaguar, tempted Winterbottom to Hethel in 1971, where he became most well known. He designed the Type 75 Elite, the Type 76 Éclat, and helped bring Giorgetto Giugiaro’s concept into reality as the Esprit. He returned from 1980 when he led the M90/ X100 project, and finally from ’86 in the role of project general manager within the vehicle, body and safety systems engineering group. He worked directly with Colin Chapman and the M90 was the last project Chapman oversaw.
Between his first two stints in Norfolk, where he worked freelance in the late ’70s following secondment to boss Chapman’s Moonraker boat-building concern, he was approached to spearhead TVR’S change in design direction. What he came up with, the Tasmin, continued the ‘wedge’ theme he had been a big part of pioneering at Lotus, and brought TVR into the modern age.
He returned to Lotus just before the Tasmin’s launch in 1980, then left for General Motors in Detroit after the M90 prototype was scrapped. He rejoined once more midway through the decade.
In a sincere tribute, Lotus wrote of Winterbottom: “He was one of the most innovative and visionary designers of his generation.”