Marcello Gandini, Legendary Italian Designer, Has Died
When you speak of superb Italian car design, and you possibly often do, one of the names typically mentioned is Marcello Gandini. The man most responsible for the look of the seminal Lamborghini Miura, the outrageous Lamborghini Countach, the diminutive Fiat X1/9, the first generation of the BMW 5-Series, and dozens of other cars, died on Wednesday.
The versatile Gandini, a native of Turin, Italy, was the son of an orchestra conductor. Gandini was working as an interior designer when he showed some of his automotive designs to Nuccio Bertone in 1963, but Bertone’s top designer at the time, Giorgetto Giugiaro, didn’t care for Gandini and he wasn’t hired.
Giugiaro, responsible for designs of the BMW M1, the De Tomaso Mangusta, the Maserati Ghibli, and the Lotus Esprit S1, moved on to a job with Ghia in 1965, and Gandini was brought on at Bertone.
During the 14 years he was at Bertone, Gandini worked on a massive variety of designs for a long list of manufacturers. He is best known for his exotics—the Lamborghini LP500 prototype, which became the Countach; the confounding Lancia Stratos Zero concept; the remarkable Alfa Romeo Montreal; the grand touring Maserati Khamsin—but he designed many vehicles for everyman, including the original Volkswagen Polo, the second-generation Renault 5, and the Citroën BX.
During his later years, spent in a 17th century home and studio located just outside Turin, Gandini enjoyed designing non-automotive projects, such as the graceful Angel helicopter. There was also a large house in Corsica that he designed, built, and then sold, plus the interior of a nightclub that he’d rather not be remembered for. “Happily, it burned,” Gandini told author and fellow designer Robert Cumberford in a story for Automobile in 2009.
Italian designers are often known for the size of their ego, but Cumberford found Gandini to be “self-effacing, modest, and quiet. He doesn’t attend motor shows and has no use for public relations but is neither particularly shy nor a recluse.”
Marcello Gandini was 85 years old.
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The invention of noodles is credited to the Chinese, but it was the Italians who gave us pasta. The French painted rough images on cave walls, but Italy gave us Michelangelo. The Germans claim to have invented the motorcar, but the Italians gave us Ferraris, Maseratis, and Lamborghinis.
If Gandini had done nothing other than give us the Miura and the Countach that would have been enough, but as a true Italian he embodied the soul of an artist.
VERY well-put!
As an Italian-American, I appreciate your comments, and will probably borrow them too.
The true master of automotive design, argeuably the greatest to have ever put pencil to paper. Gandini saw beyond the basic design brief given by the manufacturer and looked to create what had never been created. In my opinion, he invented the “supercar” when he accomplished what nobody had prior… moving the front mounted radiators of the day to the middle of the vehicle which birthed the first true supercar… the Countach. He then went on to create the very car created specifically to be win the World Rally Cahmpionship… the Lancia Stratos. His packaging of the Stratos Zero show car for Bertone was shear brilliance and his creation of the very first mid-engine orientation (Miura) was just genius. And he did all of this in such a short window of time. He was like a great musician that cannot stop creating greatness… legendary material. To sit near a Lancia Stratos or a Lamborghini Espada is to be near art. Gandini was the king and I call myself lucky to have been alive during his reign.
So many amazing classic cars have their body designed by Gandini. Prayers for the family during this time.
Marcello Gandini also styled the super cool Renault R5 Turbo. I used to own s/n 0012
auch der R5 GT Turbo hatte von Marcello Ghandini entworfene Schweller und Kotflügel Ich besitze sogar
ein Rennfahzeug mit Sicherheitskäfig (franz hink 00436642530506)
The Miura was my inspiration as a schoolboy before ever I could drive, sketched on the back pages of an exercise book in moments of boredom, of which plenty in Latin classes (thinking now, why that juxtaposition…?). I realised early on I wasn’t to be a designer, but I was destined for a career in automotive that was the next best thing…thank you Maestro (and for those that know, there’s the connection).
Just one year after presenting the Miura in Geneva, the Gandini styled Alfa Romeo Montreal was designed to express the “man’s ultimate aspirations in the field of motor cars” for the World’s Fair in Montreal Canada in 1967. I fell in love with the design and car a few years ago and now own one. The passing of one of the world’s greatest auto designers is a sad event. As noted by commenters above he embodied the soul of an artist.
While Gandini was a brilliant, visionary designer, and I’m proud to have owned one of his designs, the Miura was not the first production mid-engine car road. That honor belongs to the little-known Automobiles René Bonnet (later Matra) Djet ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matra_Djet ). Not nearly as sexy as a 170 mph 12-cylinder road missle, but credit given where credit is due.