148 — (^) JULY 2019
I
f you accept that automotive design is a
legitimate art form – no question – then
Battista “Pinin” Farina has contributed more
to this branch of human endeavour than
anyone else. He is the lodestar, the Picasso
or Warhol. Even New York’s Museum Of
Modern Art had to acknowledge his influence:
There aren’t many cars in its permanent
collection, but Farina’s Cisitalia 202 is one, a
deceptively simple-looking little coupé that set
the entire automotive industry on a new aesthetic
path when it appeared in 1947. And this at a time
when Italy was still picking its way through the
rubble of war, its factories decimated.
Cisitalia would be a footnote were it not for
Farina’s company, Carrozzeria Pininfarina,
reimagining the body as a single volume, rather
than a series of conjoined elements. Pre-war,
other designers had been playing with this form
and early forays into air-cheatingly streamlined
bodies pointed the way (including Pininfarina,
in 1937 with the Lancia Aprilia Aerodinamica).
But the 202 was something else, its aluminium
panels hand-beaten over a wooden buck to set the
template – perfect proportions, propulsive volumes
to generate a sense of speed, minimal decoration.
Pininfarina went on to be fêted by kings and
presidents and from 1952, until very recently,
clothed almost every single Ferrari, among
numerous other Alfa Romeos, Lancias and
Maseratis. The company now has tendrils that
have taken it into furniture, bridges, buildings,
This is Italy’s
fastest ever hypercar.
Want to guess what it’s powered by?
The artiste coachbuilder that shaped countless Ferraris, Lancias and Maseratis has flicked
the switch on a car of its own: the all-electric, 1,900bhp Pininfarina Battista
DRIVE
joyce
(Joyce)
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