Coachbuilders
…WITHOUT WHOM NO FERRARI WOULD HAVE BEEN BUILT
FOR MOST OF the 1950s, Ferrari’s road car production consisted of small-series runs, production of which often didn’t reach double figures. The Maranello firm was a boutique enterprise, patronised by royalty, playboys and movie stars. If you wanted a one-off, then no problem. Ferrari typically sold cars as rolling chassis to be clothed by an outside carrozzeria.
During the firm’s embryonic years, this tended to be Alfredo Vignale’s eponymous concern. The son of a car painter, and the fifth of seven brothers, Vignale took his first tentative steps into coachbuilding in 1924 on starting his apprenticeship with Ferrero & Morandi of Turin. He was 11 years old. Six years later, he caught the eye of Battista ‘Pinin’ Farina, under whom he would complete his training. At 24, he was poached by Giovanni Farina – brother of Battista and owner of Stablimenti Farina – to be his workshop foreman. Nonetheless, Vignale dreamed of being his own boss, only for war to interrupt his plans. He would have to wait until 1947 before establishing his own body shop.
Operating out of a former sawmill, his small business grew after Vignale landed a contract to make refrigerated storage containers, the first car to wear his own badge being a re-bodied Fiat Topolino. By then he had embarked on a
fruitful relationship with fellow Stablimenti Farina alumnus Giovanni Michelotti. The two friends became regular collaborators, Michelotti producing renderings that Vignale turned into three-dimensional reality. Such was Carrozzeria Vignale’s burgeoning reputation, it rapidly became Ferrari’s couturier of choice.
A bewildering array of coachbuilt confections would follow, some beautiful, some rather less so. One common characteristic was that Vignale offerings were bold and often startlingly modern-looking. This symbiotic relationship would, however, last only a few years. While notoriously dispassionate about his roadgoing wares, Enzo Ferrari was astute enough to realise that having them completed with an endless array of body styles resulted in a degree of uncertainty as to how they would turn out. He wanted greater uniformity. He need a partner, a
carrozzeria of choice, and it wasn’t Vignale. It is widely held that around 150 Ferraris were bodied by the Turin concern from 1950 to ’55. There wouldn’t be another until 1968. And it was Vignale’s former employer who gradually assumed the mantle of collaborator and foil.
By the early 1950s, as the Italian economy entered a boom period, Pinin Farina’s often delectable outlines found a ready and affluent clientele. He had known Enzo Ferrari since the 1920s and, having long recognised his likely assumption to prominence among sports car manufacturers, it was natural that Farina and Il
Commendatore would join forces. The problem was, both parties didn’t want to make the first move. Following a certain amount of pride being swallowed on both sides, they met each other halfway in Tortona and hammered out a deal over lunch. After a hesitant start, Farina bodied a trio of 212 Inters (one for movie producer Roberto Rossellini), followed by a batch of 342 and 375 Americas and 250 Europas, along with several competition cars.
It marked the birth of an enduring relationship, and one that gathered serious momentum in the latter half of the ’50s. While one-off flights of fantasy endured plenty of positive ink in the motoring monthlies, it was the Turin firm’s ‘volume’ projects such as the 250 MM that brought in consistent revenue, while Scaglietti continued to clothe competition cars. And it was in June 1958 that Ferrari and Pinin Farina conspired to produce the first truly mass-produced car to wear the
Cavallino Rampante badge: the 250 GT. The model’s importance in Ferrari lore cannot be overstated. For the manufacturer, it showed a willingness to build a volume product without deviating from the script and getting distracted in tailoring each car to suit a customer’s whim. For Farina, the original call for 200 cars represented stability; a contract that bought with it a regular source of income.
The 1960s would witness a broader range of production models, each wearing Pininfarina (one word from ’61) logos with pride, with stylists such as Aldo Brovarone, Tom Tjaarda, Leonardo Fioravanti and Paolo Martin at their creative peak. This same decade also witnessed the emergence of the Dino sub-brand, which ushered-in the first Bertone-bodied mainstream Ferrari product: the 308 GT4 in 1973.
Bertone had form when it came to shaping one-offs, not least 1962’s sublime Giorgetto Giugiaro-penned 250GT SWB Speciale. However, the GT4’s angular, Marcello Gandinistyled outline was met with a cool reception when new, and it continues to polarise opinion. Tellingly, Bertone hasn’t shaped another production model since. The closest it has come to renewing the relationship was designing the interior for the 2008-on California, and that car was originally meant to wear a Maserati badge…
Then there’s Zagato, the Milanese couturier that has fashioned some of the most beautiful – and leftfield – Ferraris ever made. What’s more, it has been doing so the longest of any coachbuilder that still exists in the present tense without gap years. It bodied its first, the 166 ‘Panoramica’, in 1949, and unleashed the landmark 250 GTZ seven years later. Some of its later Ferrari rehashes are best forgotten and
‘The Maranello firm was a boutique enterprise, patronised by royalty, playboys and movie stars. If you wanted a one-off, no problem’
‘The days of coachbuilders clothing Ferraris without fear of causing umbrage are now over’
wisest ignored, but others proved influential. The 348 Zagato Elaborazione influenced the 355 production model, for example, not least the shape of its side scoops and rear light treatment, while the one-off, Testarossa-based FZ93 foretold the Enzo. Its most recent Ferrari rebody, the Nori Harada-shaped 575 GTZ from 2006, represented a return to form for this storied styling house, being a clever distillation of previous models without resorting to cliché.
Unlike Pininfarina or even Bertone, however, Zagato was often reduced to rehashing used Ferraris rather than cladding new chassis from the factory. And it wasn’t alone, with Giovanni Michelotti being another stylist who wasn’t above working his magic on an older model for a dealer or preferred customer. The same was also true of less celebrated firms such as Neri & Bonacini, its ‘Nembo’ series of rebodies being latterly lauded for their otherworldly beauty.
Nor should we forget the efforts of nonItalian coachbuilders (although the less said of the ED Abbott-bodied 212 Export, the better). Countless Ferraris have been chopped and reconfigured in Europe and the USA, perhaps the most famous – notorious – being the Panther Westwinds-built 365 GTB/4-based shooting brake. Built at the behest of NART (North American Racing Team) principal Luigi ‘Coco’ Chinetti Jr, this early-70s one-off was arguably the wildest Ferrari of its generation. Even now, it continues to give purists palpitations. Then there’s the four-door Le Marquis 400i saloon, the many hideous Koenig Testarossa make-unders, and the various Artz ragtop conversions.
The days of coachbuilders clothing Ferraris without fear of causing umbrage is now over, though. As manufacturers go, perhaps only Rolls-Royce is more protective of its name and trademarks. It won’t let just anyone leech off the accomplishments of its name. For example, Touring’s recent Berlinetta Lusso is based on an F12 but Prancing Horse logos are conspicuously absent. The Milanese concern, in its original incarnation, created such landmark Ferraris as the 166MM barchetta, but that was then. Nowadays, if you want a bespoke Ferrari, you need to buy one from its own-brand atelier. It’s all part of a move to bring everything in-house, not least the mainstream models that are now being created within Ferrari Centro Stilo under Flavio Manzoni. Little is farmed out anymore.
If nothing else, long-time partner Pininfarina is one of few historical Italian coachbuilders to have survived the sort of ructions that prompted the demise of many of its rivals. While it hasn’t shaped a production model in three years, it has returned to its roots as a coachbuilder, the 458-based SP12EC built for rock deity Eric Clapton being perhaps the last creation from an outside coachbuilder to wear Prancing Horse logos. Even then, it was in collaboration with Ferrari’s own studio.
There is little likelihood of the coachbuilt Ferrari enjoying a renaissance, by which we mean something that bit more creative than a gold lamé wrap or other such trashiness that nowadays seem so pervasive. One-offs and small-series confections have, for the most, served to further bolster Ferrari’s already expansive legacy.
We recall such cars in awe, as much for their looks as their backstories. They are the most satisfyingly idiosyncratic of all Ferraris, reflecting in a most arresting way the talents that shaped them, the time and period when they were made, and the characters who commissioned their construction. At least we have the memories.