The Pininfarina Enigma GT Is A Hydrogen V6 Grand Tourer Of The Future

With a hydrogen-powered V6 hybrid setup and an opening canopy, this is the design house’s take on a Calais-to-Cannes cruiser for tomorrow

Mike Bartholomew

27 Feb 2024

Well, there we were thinking this year’s rather quiet Geneva Motor Show wasn’t going to throw up any surprises. We weren’t quite ready for Pininfarina to show up with this.

This is the Enigma GT, and it’s how Automobili Pininfarina, the German-based car company that shares its roots with the storied Italian design house, envisions the wealthy people of the near future will cruise down to the French Riviera or the Swiss Alps.

Pininfarina Enigma GT - side, with canopy open

Pininfarina’s first model is the Battista, a 1900bhp all-electric hypercar underpinned by Rimac tech. The Enigma GT concept is supposed to preview something a little more relaxed than that.

It’s a hybrid-powered, 2+2 grand tourer, packed with all manner of fanciful tech and features. At its core is a powertrain consisting of a 268bhp electric motor driving the front wheels, and a 436bhp 2.5-litre, twin-turbocharged V6 powering the rears. The V6, though, is hydrogen-powered, a technology that theoretically reduces exhaust emissions to near zero.

Foregoing the traditional grand tourer silhouette, the Enigma is mid-engined, which allows the cabin to be filled with light by that huge wraparound windscreen. This is also where the car’s party trick happens: entry is gained by a massive front-hinged canopy. This is an idea that harks back to a number of Pininfarina’s past designs: see also 1969’s Ferrari 512 S Berlinetta Speciale and 2005’s Maserati Birdcage 75th, among others.

The body has been designed with aerodynamics as a priority, with the low front and tapering rear, active grille shutters and front wheel air deflectors contributing to a claimed drag coefficient of just 0.24Cd.

Inside, it’s exactly what you’d expect from a concept car in 2024: a screen stretching from pillar to pillar and a yoke-like steering wheel. Oh, and it has an onboard AI assistant and can drive itself, because of course.

As you can probably guess, the Enigma GT is very much a concept car. Pininfarina says it wants to further refine some of the ideas seen on it for future production cars, though, hinting that we might see something to coincide with the design house’s 95th anniversary next year.

The first full sentence spoken by an infant Mike was a review of the ride quality of a Volvo 850. It was “Daddy’s car goes bumpy-bump on a bumpy road,” so would probably need proofreading a bit, but it was a start.