Last week, the Italian luxury design company Pininfarina celebrated its 85th anniversary. Perhaps it's more timely than ever to consider the fate of this and other similar companies in these fast-moving times of automotive design and engineering. Because despite having its name and iconic logo attached to some of the most beautiful production and concept cars the world has ever seen, Pininfarina is having to hold on for dear life.
In 2013, less than two years after Pininfarina ceased automotive production (until then, it had been building the gorgeous but flawed Alfa Romeo Brera and Spider models), the company was granted three years to repay US$182.6 million (Dh670.7m) it owed to various parties. After severe cost-cutting and restructuring that saw its workforce shrink from 5,000 staff to 10 per cent of that number, it’s now at least posting operating profits. It has gone back to the drawing board, if you like, and is again focusing purely on design, leaving manufacturing to others.
This renewed simplicity appears to have been a success. Pininfarina is again making waves with bespoke designs that used to be its stock in trade. Back in the golden age of motoring, designers had almost entirely free reign to do as they wished. Luxury cars could be utterly unique if your pockets were deep enough; one-off designs were handcrafted by artisans from aluminium and fitted to rolling chassis that soon became rolling works of art.
These days, by necessity, car companies cannot deviate from the core products that have taken years and countless millions to develop. Pininfarina and other design houses now have to work within strict parameters so that all the safety equipment and crash protection that new cars require remain untouched. But that hasn’t stopped creativity – on the contrary, it has just made it more challenging.
One result of this rediscovered focus has been the Ferrari Sergio, named after Pininfarina’s recently deceased former chairman who guided the company for four decades. Limited to just six examples, it’s based on the underpinnings of Ferrari’s 458 Spider, and while the final production design differed from the 2013 concept car (it didn’t have a windscreen, for instance), it still ended up as something extremely special. Naturally, all six were immediately snapped up by collectors – the first example built was delivered to a customer in Abu Dhabi in December, three months before it was officially shown at this year’s Geneva motor show.
Pininfarina and Ferrari have been joined at the hip since the 1950s, and during the 60s, 70s and 80s, almost every production car to rumble out of the gates of the Maranello factory had the design house’s crest on its flanks. It’s also closely linked to Maserati’s history, while Lamborghini chose to collaborate with Bertone for styling duties – another company teetering on the edge of financial collapse.
One of the problems facing these styling houses is luxury-car companies now style everything themselves – it makes good business sense to have everyone under one roof, especially as form now has to follow function if a car is to gain type approval and be offered for sale. So these artists have, largely, been left out in the cold; once proud companies with rich, diverse heritages have been forced to diversify, designing trains, cutlery, hotel rooms, espresso machines – anything to keep their pencils sharp.
But if Pininfarina and others such as Bertone and Zagato can stay alive by downsizing (just like the engines of the cars they would once have designed), focusing on special one-offs such as the Sergio, that dream may never die. For collectors and fans, the lure of these motoring designer labels will always be irresistible.
motoring@thenational.ae
Follow us @LifeNationalUAE
Follow us on Facebook for discussions, entertainment, reviews, wellness and news.
