Beauty & The Beast: Pininfarina

18 May 2015

Sergio Pininfarina - the 85 year-old honorary chairman of the Italian design house that bares his name - died at his home in Turin last week. His accession to the top job in 1966 heralded a new beginning for the company; it’s since designed and built some of the world’s most beautiful machines.

The company’s CV speaks volumes. Although best known for its work with Ferrari and Maserati, Pininfarina has also worked with mainstream manufacturers like Peugeot, and is regarded by some as having had a decisive impact on the British car industry thanks to its tireless work with British Leyland.

As such, over the next few weeks, Car Throttle will be celebrating Italian design houses, their most beautiful creations, and the impact they’ve had on car design as a whole. A fitting addition to Sergio’s 20 major design awards if we say so ourselves...

But there’s a twist - it wouldn’t be Car Throttle without one. No company boasts a complete range of flawless designs. So as well as looking at their most beautiful, I’ll be having a look at some designs they’d rather we’d have forgotten. After all, even the Italians have bad days at the office…

Sadly, we’ve made the decision to exclude concept cars and one-offs from the judging criteria, so it’s production spec’ only I'm afraid. Equally interestingly, we’ll not be taking a car’s dynamic ability into consideration. In this case, beauty really is only skin deep...

Welcome, then, to part one of Car Throttle’s “Beauty and the Beast”, the Pininfarina edition.

Beauty: 1963 Ferrari 250 GT Lusso Berlinetta

Pininfarina’s best effort wears a Ferrari badge. Surprise, surprise. The 250 Lusso is truly, utterly, deeply fantastic, and worthy of its place at the top of our list. The company’s founder (Sergio’s Dad, who was still alive at the time) was so proud of it, he had one specially commissioned for himself.

Beauty: 2007 Maserati GranTurismo

The second of our beauties is another grand tourer, although this time it’s one wearing a Maserati badge. Want some valuable CT advice? Stay away from hardcore track versions with their carbon-fibre trinketry. Stick to the base, and you’ll end up with an impossibly elegant coupé...if not one that can lap the 'Ring with any dignity. Oh and here's a review we did on the GranTurismo S.

Beast: 1975 Rolls Royce Camargue

The Camargue was the first post-war Rolls not to have been designed by the in-house team. It’s also the last production Rolls not to have been designed by the in-house team - three guesses why.

Picture: Some rights reserved, Ed Callow