Beauty & The Beast: Italdesign Giugiaro

Gig..., Guig..., Giugiaro? Is that right? Yes, I think it is. Anyway, welcome Car Throttlers to Beauty & The Beast: Part Two.

Tom Harrison

18 May 2015

Gig..., Guig..., Giugiaro? Is that right? Yes, I think it is. Anyway, welcome Car Throttlers to Beauty & The Beast: Part Two. This week, we’ve turned our attention to, you guessed it, Giorgetto Giugiaro and ItalDesign - the design house he founded in 1968 after brief spells at Bertone and Ghia.

In case you’d forgotten, our Beauty & The Beast series celebrates Italian design houses - and the contribution they’ve made to automotive design as a whole - by looking at some of their most beautiful creations. But that’s not all. No designer can boast a complete range of flawless designs, so we’ll also be checking out the ugly duckings.

Last week, we extolled the virtues of the Ferrari 250 Berlinetta Lusso and the Maserati GranTurismo - two of Pininfarina’s finest, but we also exposed two of the company’s most hideous designs. Which cars will take the honours this week? Keep scrolling, and you’ll find out.

A quick reminder of the rules: one-offs and concept cars aren’t eligible, and for once, a car’s dynamic ability doesn’t matter. For the purposes of Beauty & The Beast, we’re only going skin deep...

Beauty: Alfa Romeo Brera

Photos of the Alfa Brera share roughly the same addictive properties as nicotine. As such, they should come with a government health warning. You can only spend so much time looking at them before you're filled with an insatiable desire to own one. In black. With tan leather...

Beauty: Iso Grifo

Maybe this is a personal thing, but we just love the Grifo. Mr Giugiaro penned its shape while he was working at Bertone in 1963, and hasn't it aged well? 413 were built between '63 and '74.

Beast: Daewoo Matiz

It's hard to believe that this odious little runt was given to us by the same company that gave birth to the Brera. The Matiz was originally destined to wear a Fiat badge, but the Italian car maker rejected it out of hand. Wonder why...