Sergio Pininfarina was considered the master of Italian automotive design for over half a century.
Sergio Pinanfarina, a name long associated with some of the most beautiful and exotic cars ever designed, has died at age 85.
The Italian designer took a small family firm and transformed it into an iconic powerhouse that helped craft such classic products as the Ferrari Testarossa, Ferrari Enzo, Fiat Spider and the Maserati Quattroporte. His death comes as the firm he led for nearly half a century was set to post its first profit in eight years, having squeaked through a period of financial crisis that brought down a number of other small design and manufacturing houses, such as Karmann and Italdesign.
Sergio Pininfarina was, “An exceptional person who connected his name indissolubly with our history and our success,” said Ferrari CEO Luca di Montezemolo. “Sergio was one of the most important advocates of ‘Made in Italy’ all over the world, a man, who gave Italy credibility and splendor.
A young Sergio Pininfarina shown with one of the many Ferraris that his design house developed over the decades.
The eponymous company was founded in 1930 by Pininfarina’s father, Gian Battista “Pinin” Farina, who began as a carriage maker in Turin. But the big breakthrough came with the Cisalfa coupe designed by the elder Pininfarina in 1947 as Italy struggled to recover from the devastation of World War II. One of the cars is now in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, in New York.
Gian Battista had already built ties to a number of well-known marques by the 1950s before his son took over, a client roster that eventually came to include the likes of Alfa Romeo, Maserati, Peugeot, Volvo, Rolls-Royce, Bentley and Cadillac. But it was the ties to Ferrari, first formed in 1952, that unarguably earned the house of Pininfarina a place in automotive history. Indeed, since the debut of the 1952 212 Inter Cabriolet, all Ferrari GT models have been designed by Pininfarina.
A close confidante of Enzo Ferrari, Pininfarina took personal pride in the design of the limited-edition Ferrari Enzo developed to honor the sports carmaker’s founder.
But the firm also was happy to work with more mundane manufacturers such as Chevrolet, Mitsubishi and Hyundai
Already serving as president, the son fully took over from his aging father in 1966, setting out to expand both Pininfarina’s design business and its manufacturing operations. In 1972 it even opened the first wind tunnel in Italy. Focusing on limited-edition products it was eventually producing more than 50,000 vehicles annually before the bottom fell out.
Things looked good until then. Pininfarina even went public in 1986, listing itself on the Italian Stock Exchange.
But things started to turn bad late in the last decade. The maker struggled for survival, Pinanfarina and the rest of the family forced to use their 77% stake in the company as collateral for desperately needed loans that will come due in 2018. The manufacturing and design operations were meanwhile sharply cut back. But at least Pininfarina survived. Rivals like Germany’s Karmann and France’s Heuliez collapsed. And the other major Italian design house, Italdesign, was taken over by Volkswagen AG.
Sergio Pininfarina handed over the reins in 2006, though he remained honorary chairman and kept close to the company. Son Andrea assumed control of the firm but died two years later.
Sergio Pininfarina’s death comes barely two months after the design firm announced it was expecting to earn a profit this year for the first time since 2004.