Italians are renowned for their obsessive attention to the aesthetics of pretty much everything. As a result, the country enjoys a reputation for style and flair that the marketing teams of brands like Alfa Romeo or Maserati waste no opportunity to exploit to their advantage.

Yet, few would argue that, when it comes to car design, that reputation was mainly established between the 1950s and the 1980s, the golden era of the Italian “Carrozzieri.” These were a handful of small firms located around Turin that, at the height of their creative powers, managed to exert an outsize influence on the aesthetic development of the automobile worldwide.

But it’s plain to see that those days are gone. Bertone is no more, ItalDesign is an outpost of VW, and if you want your new car to come with a Pininfarina badge, your only choice is the Battista hypercar.

So, what went wrong?

The question may be simple, yet the answer is anything but. The downfall of Italy’s famed design houses wasn’t triggered by a single event or circumstance. Instead, it was a gradual process characterized by multiple contributing factors. But to understand what knocked the likes of Pininfarina and Bertone off their perches, we first need to look at how they got there in the first place.

The postwar years weren’t kind to the European coachbuilding industry. The sector’s traditional client pool was dwindling, and as the continent’s automobile industry embraced unibody construction, so was the supply of suitable donor chassis to work on.

By 1955, many prestigious Italian names from the pre-war era, such as Castagna and Stabilimenti Farina, were gone. The few coachbuilding firms that survived this tumultuous period were those with closer ties to the local automakers. These were the strongest, most resourceful outfits that could work with unibody structures and take care of small production runs—all while serving as actual design partners, too. Genuine one-stop shops that, on short notice, could ease the pressure from an automaker’s factory and design office.

That’s because while the switch to chassis-less construction made for lighter, more efficient cars, it also made tooling up for low-volume derivatives like coupès or convertibles significantly more expensive. And that’s where companies like Pininfarina and Bertone entered the picture. Outsourcing their design and production allowed Fiat, Lancia, and Alfa Romeo to offer sporting derivatives of their regular models without investing in additional production capacity. This became even more critical by the second half of the 1950s, as a booming Italian economy sent the demand for new cars through the roof.

By the mid-’60s, these lucrative contract manufacturing arrangements had transformed Pininfarina and Bertone into small industrial empires. Both companies built car bodies by the thousands, yet their fortunes depended as much on ideas as they did on sheet metal. Being perceived as the cutting edge of automobile design was crucial to keep commissions coming in, so wowing the crowds at the Turin, Paris, or Geneva motor shows with sensational show cars was an integral part of these firms’ business. And the results were as spectacular as the cars themselves: Design commissions came pouring in from France to Japan and everywhere in between. It seemed the Turinese masters could do no wrong, but their success was due in no small part to favorable circumstances.

As we intend it today, car design was practically invented in Detroit in the late 1920s when GM established its “Art & Colour” section. It didn’t take long for each of the Big Three to have a well-funded and fully-staffed design department. But, strange as it may sound to our modern ears, during the ’50s and ’60s, most European automakers had yet to realize the essential role design played in market success. If they had an in-house design team, it was often understaffed and placed under the engineering department’s thumb. Management frequently had little understanding or appreciation for design matters and, lured by their flashy dream cars, didn’t think twice about handing the job to the Italians.

Of course, that’s not to say these people weren’t good. Unencumbered by the internal pressures the home teams were subjected to, the Italian studios repeatedly delivered the freshest, most original proposals. Sometimes, when one particular automaker was stuck in a dangerous creative rut, that outside input—think Giugiaro’s work for VW in the 1970s, for example—could even prove vital. But nothing lasts forever, and as the 1980s gave way to the 1990s, dark storm clouds were already looming on the horizon.

The first cracks began appearing right in the contract manufacturing business that had served Bertone and Pininfarina so well. Quality standards across the industry increased, while more advanced, flexible production methods allowed different cars to be made on the same line. As a result, automakers lost the incentive to outsource the production of lower-volume models. Moreover, if an international customer faltered, falling back on Fiat’s shoulders was no longer possible. Italy’s former industrial giant was all but broke heading into the turn of the new millennium and could no longer offer the support that had been so crucial four decades earlier. Few things can dig a larger hole in a company’s finances quicker than an idle factory, but the problems didn’t stop there.

By the time the last 747 full of Cadillac Allantés left Turin’s airport, design culture was much more widespread worldwide. Automotive executives were now acutely aware of design’s importance, and wanted to keep tighter control over it. Consequently, manufacturers invested heavily in their own design studios and often had multiple ones on different continents. With that, any incentive to involve third parties in the process was gone.

Especially when said third party counted most of your competitors among its customers. In an excellent biography published a few years ago, the legendary designer Ercole Spada shared a poignant anecdote from his time at BMW. He recalled how the company routinely asked each of Turin’s most prominent studios for proposals despite not intending to pursue any. But, since Pininfarina, Bertone, and ItalDesign all worked with BMW’s rivals, having these companies “compete” against its own design studio was, for the Bavarian firm, an indirect way to get a glimpse of its rivals’ general direction.

Last but certainly not least, complacency set in. There may still have been a space for Turin’s storied design firms in the modern era if they had kept their foot hard on the accelerator and their gaze locked on the horizon. Perhaps even more than in their 1960s heyday, being at the forefront of automobile design was a matter of life or death. Yet, one look at Bertone’s post-2000 output is enough to see why their phone stopped ringing.

Of course, Pininfarina is still around. Its latest work, the lovely Morgan Midsummer, shows that the company hasn’t lost its touch. But the days in which every Ferrari and every Peugeot on sale was a Pininfarina design are gone, never to return.

Nevertheless, it can be argued that what was created all those years ago in Turin continues to wield a certain influence on automobile design today. As a part of our shared cultural heritage, it’s in the back of every car designer’s mind, providing inspiration and being reinterpreted in novel ways. There are many examples out there, but the best one may be Hyundai’s brilliant Ioniq 5. It’s a resolutely contemporary and highly distinctive design, yet its design language’s roots are in Giugiaro’s “folded paper” cars from the 1970s.

Ultimately, the tale of Turin’s fallen design giants is as much about their amazing cars as it is about the fleeting nature of success. Left behind by the industry they once ruled, what’s left of the Italian “Carrozzieri” currently faces an uncertain future. What is certain, however, is that their massive legacy will stay with us for a very, very long time.

***

Check out the Hagerty Media homepage so you don’t miss a single story, or better yet, bookmark it. To get our best stories delivered right to your inbox, subscribe to our newsletters.

The post The Rise and Fall of Turin’s Design Firms appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Platform sharing has been going on since the days of the Model T, which spawned everything from minimalist Runabouts to formal Doctor’s Coupes, but Ford really upped the ante by the early 1990s. You may remember one particularly impressive feat of late-’80s platform cross pollution pollination: the Cadillac Allanté, a custom-bodied E-body Eldorado that literally flew in from Italy to be assembled in America.

Luxury vibe and high-stakes budgets aside, I wager Ford’s gambit on affordable, top-down motoring was even more of an M.C. Escher–worthy supply chain. Only FoMoCo could cut up a Mazda family car, seek stylistic inspiration from two Italian design studios, source greasy bits from Mazda’s high-performance portfolio, apply the (then passé) name of Europe’s answer to the Mustang, assemble the whole lot in Victoria, Australia, and retail the resulting vehicle at dealerships still reeling from the ill-fated Merkur brand.

Boy, that’s a lot to process. With an origin story that complicated, how could the Mercury Capri not earn a spot of real estate in our hearts? There’s one big reason—but we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

In theory, the Capri had the chops to make it work. Wait, hear me out on this.

Like the cosmopolitan Allanté, the Capri eschewed in-house notions from Ford designers for a final exterior penned by Carrozzeria Ghia. While Italdesign lost the bid for the body, its handiwork is present in the Capri’s minimalist yet purposeful interior. While the somewhat sleek skin may not have the proper proportioning of the rear-wheel-drive, low-slung, and long-hooded Miata, the Mazda 323–based platform has a fair bit of cred thanks to Mazda’s admirable efforts in Group A rally racing. There was even a turbocharged engine (XR2 model) with a mandatory manual transmission, a combination unavailable in the Miata.

The Capri was unlike its competition, and that evaluation doesn’t necessarily damn it with faint praise. That’s because the Capri was far more practical than a mere two-seat sports car. Even better, the rear seat—useless as it may be for grown humans—sported a hard-sided back, which folded to accomodate a significant amount of cargo, should the top remain up to allow full access to the trunk. The Capri’s standard tonneau cover topped the Miata’s exposed affair, while an optional hard-top secured four-season fun. There was even an optional, speedster-like cabin-cover so Capri owners can play Porsche Speedster in foul weather. You know, weather that’s ideally suited to wrong-wheel-drive propulsion.

But what made the Capri stand out was the aforementioned huffer, feeding extra air to the Mazda-sourced, 1.6-liter mill. The DNA is similar to what’s found in the Mazda 323 GTX, sans the all-wheel-drive drivetrain. A tragedy, but all automotive efforts inspire a cult-like following. Well, eventually. And the Capri XR2 deserves the following it has garnered, even becoming a credible threat in 24 Hours of Lemons races. Well, at least when the events are staffed with Spec Miata racers and seasoned B-series engine builders. Here’s a telling quote from one of the race Capri’s caretakers:

What can I say? After changing literally everything in the suspension and upping the boost to unimaginable levels, it’s the front-wheel drive Miata fighter it was always destined to be. –Zachary Fox

My bias is clear, but Mostly Harmless Racing and their #42 Capri XR2 shows us this ragtop had more potential than we knew.

So feel free to consider a modified Capri XR2 as a legitimate threat to a Miata, provided there are enough straights to let the turbo really sing. Who knows, maybe there are enough people willing to embrace the benefit and put Mercury on their list. No matter, the folks at Motorweek got their hands on a 1994 Mercury Capri XR2 as a swan-song review for this star-crossed captive import of Japanese, Italian, German, Australian, and American heritage.

The revised front/rear bumpers and bolder rear spoiler weren’t fooling anyone, but the 0-to-60 sprint of 8.0 seconds clearly meant the visually louder tail lights were all a 1.6-liter Miata would ever see at a stop-light grand prix. The 16.1-second quarter-mile time was also superior, and a strong 88-mph trap speed suggested the Miata had better make some headway in preparation of a racetrack’s wide-open straight before the checkered flag.

Turbo torque is irrelevant for most North American buyers of Lincoln-Mercury’s little droptop, but the $13,190 asking price ($14,900 for the turbocharged XR2) made Motorweek lament the passing of the cheapest example of the breed on the market. But I doubt there were many sleepless nights or tear-soaked cheeks upon the Capri’s passing, and its singular party trick was rendered pointless by the 1994 introduction of the 1.8-liter Miata. There could only be one winner, and it was clearly the product of thoroughbred Mazda engineering and pureblood roadster design.

In the end, the Capri’s strengths were also its downfalls. The price was right, but even with a turbo, nothing could stop the Miata’s righteous march to the hallowed halls of sports car perfection. Who knows, maybe all the billable hours Mazda charged to Ford for its effort actually subsidized the Miata’s R&D costs? Ford musta written Mazda a fat check for the privilege, but they forgot one cardinal rule in the car business: The answer is always Miata.

The post The Capri was slightly Allanté, somewhat Miata, and an entirely misguided Mercury appeared first on Hagerty Media.

Few automakers have been as reluctant to let go of the past as Jaguar. After scoring a major success with the styling of its XJ flagship sedan all the way back in 1968, the British brand spent the next four decades clinging to the same basic shape, maintaining the model’s quad-headlight countenance for almost the entire duration of the nameplate.

As the ’80s drew to a close, however, such homage became increasingly perceived as liability. Jaguar was becoming outdated by other Euro badges bent on embracing aero-friendly and thoroughly modern sheetmetal, and Coventry appeared to be treating its heritage more like an anchor than a buoy. More than a few observers shared this opinion, but too many years passed before the company took any significant steps.

One spark of dissent nearly ignited a conflagration of change within Jaguar’s insular hallways. Unveiled in 1990, the Jaguar Kensington Concept looked outside the company’s own history and even its in-house styling department, seeking to wrench the XJ’s shape free from a timeline that seemed to flow only backwards. Although the end result never darkened a Jaguar showroom, it survived halfway around the world, witness to one of the weirdest examples of automotive corporate synergy to date.

Be the change you want to see

Hoping to score a lucrative contract and bolster its own reputation, Giorgetto Giugiaro’s Italdesign decided to imagine the XJ set free from historical propriety. The challenge was simple, though successful execution that had somehow eluded the company’s internal processes since the 1960s: Create an executive sedan that didn’t rely on a three-box design. Thus was born the Kensington Concept, a vehicle that reinvented the XJ’s most laggardly aspects while retaining some of the brand’s design cues.

Italdesign used three elements to reshape Jaguar’s deeply established sedan roots. The front end abandoned a four-lamp visage (while maintaining a slot-like grille similar to other Jaguar models). At the rear, a re-think of the XJ’s boat-tail significantly shortened the deck while smoothing out the bumper and narrowing the distance between the fenders. Connecting them both was a sloping roofline that flowed from front to rear, with a profile incorporating oval glass in place of Jaguar’s familiar rectangles and triangles. Round rather than sharp, the Kensington still managed to convey a sense of purpose with its power pyramid hood and beefy flanks.

The interior of the Kensington adopted the organic ovals of its body. Wrapped in teal leather, the cabin accurately predicted the blobbier trends that would dominate interior design in the early 1990s. The vehicle itself sat on an XJ12 floor pan and borrowed its 12-cylinder motor from the production model (although that engine would not be installed in time for the concept’s debut at the Geneva Motor Show).

Sign of the times

Sit the Kensington Concept alongside contemporary fare from Volvo and Alfa Romeo, and it becomes clear that Italdesign had its finger on the pulse of the times. Just as important, the vehicle didn’t stray too far from the conservative yet stylish language of Jaguar’s existing lineup. Squint at the Kensington and you can clearly see the XJ foundation, but imagine it rolling by you on the street and you’ll immediately recognize its ’90s aesthetic.

Jaguar, however, was less than impressed. Although it had a history of working with Italian designers in the past (particularly Pininfarina and Bertone), the idea of a more bulbous XJ replacement was slightly distasteful. Coventry had no intention of licensing Turin’s take on the automaker’s sedan of the future, leaving Italdesign to decide how best to monetize the Kensington Concept.

Two paths diverge on a motorway …

It’s here that the would-be leaping feline and Jaguar’s actual design path diverge in a most unusual fashion. Having purchased Jaguar shortly before the Kensington’s debut, Ford’s takeover of the brand (and push towards platform-sharing) encouraged it to experiment with breaking the established Jaguar mold. Both the S-Type sedan (based on the Ford Mondeo) and its XK replacement (a re-body of the XJS platform) were decidedly more ovoid than anything the brand had yet produced. Still, the reinvention was slow and patchwork, and the XJ clung to its tried-and-true silhouette for the next two decades. It wasn’t until the mid-size XF four-door arrived for the 2008 model year that Jaguar completely abandoned its retro focus and produced a truly modern design that saw no need to drag a foot in its heritage. Led by Ian Callum’s vision, a similarly-shaped XJ finally followed shortly thereafter.

Giorgetto, on the other hand, thought the Kensington Concept was perfectly viable. If Jaguar wasn’t interested, surely someone else would be. It wasn’t long before he found a willing suitor in Daewoo. A Korean purveyor of extremely affordable automobiles may appear an obvious step down from old-school English luxury, but profit trumped prestige. Daewoo needed a stylish skin for its mid-size Leganza model, and a deal was soon struck. After a few tweaks, the Kensington was hit with a metaphorical shrink ray and repurposed for the Daewoo model, which arrived on European roads at the end of the 1990s.

A curious footnote to the Kensington/Daewoo connection is the provenance of the Toyota Aristo. Marketed as the Lexus GS 300 in North America starting in 1993, there are certainly similarities between the Leganza, the Kensington, and the GS, all three of which were penned by Italdesign. The Lexus sedan, however, had been in development since 1988, and was itself an influence on the Leganza and the Kensington, rather than the other way around.

The post Failing to woo ’90s Jaguar, ItalDesign’s XJ concept found a home in Korea appeared first on Hagerty Media.

DeLorean continues to tease us with prospects of a rebirth, which now appears to be playing out twofold.

A shadowy, gullwinged silhouette shown on Italdesign’s Twitter account is the product of a joint venture collaboration the Italian design house and Humble, Texas-based DMC, which will proceed independently of the planned limited run of “new,” retro-style DeLoreans. We spent some time on the phone with DMC vice president James Espey to gather more information on this mysterious trans-Atlantic collab, and to check in for an update on the delayed “new” DMC-12s.

#DeLorean DMC-12 turns 40 this year! This picture was shot on the 21st January 1981, when the very first production model was released. What a better way to celebrate an icon of automotive history than a sneak peek of the (near) future?
Stay tuned for more… #visionbeyondtime!? pic.twitter.com/JKcHsMjgOy

— Italdesign (@italdesign) January 21, 2021

The teaser on Italdesign’s Twitter post may be of a pure concept car, and while it wears the DMC logo and the characteristic top-hinged doors, don’t expect it to be a grandchild of the DMC-12. Think second cousin twice-removed.

Espey wasn’t able to share much more on the Italdesign project, but he did clearly differentiate it from the cars that DMC plans to produce under the Low Volume Motor Vehicle Act (LVMVA). “Those regulations stipulate that a vehicle must resemble a vehicle made at least 25 years ago,” says Espey. “I would not expect a Italdesign project to fall under that criteria, should one be produced in any way—whether strictly a concept vehicle, or one with some plan for production.”

The “new” DMC-12s, according to Espey, are still stuck in limbo thanks to federal bureaucracy and (to a lesser extent) COVID-19.

The LVMVA is part of the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act, a $305B bill passed by Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama in December of 2015. Found in section 24405 of that bill, the LVMVA is essentially a list of instructions for NHTSA and the EPA. The LVMVA didn’t establish any programs the day it was signed; it provided the goals, but left the execution of them up to two other (massive) federal agencies. Quoting from the bill itself, as it was introduced in June of 2015, NHTSA had “to establish a program allowing low volume motor vehicle manufacturers to produce a limited number of vehicles annually within a regulatory system that addresses the unique safety and financial issues associated with limited production.” The EPA was tasked with allowing “low volume motor vehicle manufacturers to install engines from vehicles that have been issued certificates of conformity.”

Unsurprisingly, NHTSA dragged its feet. The deadline for issue the regulations was set for December 4, 2016. Three years later, SEMA called NHTSA out, filing suit in October, 2019, for NHTSA’s failing to issue the necessary regulations. That December, NHTSA released the proposed rules, and a 30-day period of public commentary began. As of this month, NHTSA finalized the regulations.

The final green light remains tantalizingly out of reach. The regulations cannot go into effect until they are officially entered in the Federal Register. Then, and only then, will the LVMVA “become part of the great bureaucratic mess that is Washington, D.C.,” says Espey. The timing of the election cycle is further delaying the process. “Anytime there’s a change in administration, particularly a party change,” says Espey, “they put a hold on anything going into the Federal Register until they’ve had a chance to review it to make sure nobody’s trying to pull a fast one.”

Espey says he’s been told to expect publication in a matter of weeks—even days. But DMC, along with every other low-volume manufacturer, is still at the mercy of D.C. politics. “Hopefully, [NHTSA’s regulations] will just be reviewed by the acting administrator,” says Espey. There’s an outside chance that the process will be delayed until President Biden’s Secretary of Transportation appointee, Pete Buttigieg, is confirmed and can appoint a permanent director of NHTSA, but Espey expects the acting administrator, Jack Danielson, to be able to approve the low-volume regulations.

For now, Espey’s cautiously optimistic that NHTSA’s regulations will be published in the Federal Register in few weeks. “I can’t imagine the Biden administration wants to be behind further delays on this.”

In short, if you feel like the reborn DMC-12 has been consistently in the future rather than the present, don’t blame DeLorean Motor Company.

What’s next for Espey and DeLorean? Once the regulations are published in the Federal Register, funding. “First thing, make sure that money is there,” says Espey, “because I don’t want to go wasting anyone’s time. We did a lot of [sourcing funds] in early 2016 after the bill was signed by then President Obama and we figured, oh crap, we only have a year before regulations are out, we gotta get going.”

The program was funded through the rest of development and the start of production as recently as late 2017. Of course, NHTSA’s promises that the regulations would be ready in “just a few more weeks,” Espey remembers, went unfulfilled. “Now the economy has changed dramatically since 2017, in no small part thanks to COVID.”

DMC lost ground in the past four years as it waited for NHTSA and the EPA to get their acts together. Suppliers bailed, proposed drivetrains aged out of EPA certification, and champions in local and state governments either lost interest or were replaced by less invested figures. Some suppliers went out of business, while others, Espey explains, “were absorbed by larger companies that don’t want to fool with low-volume projects that are going to be less than a percent of someone’s profit and 80 percent of someone’s headache.”

The initial numbers drawn up for the low-production run of DMC-12s are remaining steady. Espey says that DMC has a good working relationship with an engineering team, and he’s been very satisfied with their work. “I think they’re well-poised to take it the rest of the way,” he says. It’s largely up to them to fill the rest of holes in inventory and find suppliers to replace those who have gone by the wayside.

The most formidable obstacle remains the powertrain: “The single biggest line item on the bill of materials which is gonna dictate cost and price,” in Espey’s words. DMC had a letter of intent with “a major automotive manufacturer to use their engine,” but the arrangement has since evaporated. Currently, GM’s E-ROD lineup is the only available drivetrain certified for production under the LVMVA.

“I heard rumors that some of the other Detroit Three would be putting something together,” says Espey. “They occasionally showed up at meetings … but nothing’s showed up, and probably for good reason. They haven’t had any assurance that there’s gonna be a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for them.”

The good news is that the DeLorean name holds enduring cachet.

“I can’t think of any other car that has that kind of name recognition that hasn’t produced a car in 40 years,” says Espey. “I had a kid come up to me at a cars and coffee—he was probably a teenager—and his dad said ‘yeah, [John Z.] DeLorean got his start at Pontiac.‘ And the kid said, ‘What’s a Pontiac?” Pontiac’s barely been discontinued for 12 years; in comparison, DeLorean is something of a unicorn.

“When a new DeLorean is ready to be introduced, it’s gonna make news,” says Espey. “And if it’s powered by, oh, hypothetically, by GM, by Toyota, by Tesla—or you can pick a name at random, basically, because that’s what I’m doing—that’s going to be news.”

The post Get hyped for DeLorean’s two-pronged return appeared first on Hagerty Media.

The million-dollar Godzilla, Nissan’s GT-R50 by Italdesign, is literally on track for deliveries in 2021. As you can see in this latest video, beyond its wild Italian styling the GT-R50 has been weaponized for circuit driving.

The 3.8-liter twin-turbo V-6 motor produces 710 hp. That’s 110 hp up on the GT-R Nismo, on which the car is based. There’s a beefed-up six-speed dual-clutch transmission, bigger Brembo brakes and continuously-adjustable Bilstein dampers. The GT-R50’s special 21-inch alloy wheels wear Michelin Pilot Super Sport tires sized at 255/35 R21 at the front and 285/30 R21 at the rear.

As it hoons around the Tazio Nuvolari circuit in Italy you can see the active aerodynamics hard at work, gluing the Nissan to the asphalt. It’s just a shame the music dominates and you can’t hear the sound of that NISMO-tuned V-6.

As the name suggests, just 50 units will be made so this is potentially the only time you’ll ever see one driven in anger.

The post Nissan GT-R50 takes to the track appeared first on Hagerty Media.