Marcello Gandini: goodbye to a creator of dreams

Being born in Turin marks. The birthplace of FIAT and also of great coachbuilders, the Italian city breathes history and feeling for the automobile. At 25, Gandini walks through the door of Carrozzeria Bertone, where under the powerful hand of Nuccio, Giorgetto Giugiaro directs the work.

But Giugiaro does not want to be under Nuccio Bertone's orders, he wants to draw his own destiny and two years later, he leaves to create Ital Design. The young Marcello takes the baton, who at only 27 years old assumes the responsibility of directing Bertone's design.

And he starts his concert with a magnificent, sublime work: the Lamborghini Miura. But the shadow of doubt runs over the scene because Giugiaro had left the sketches of this fantastic car before leaving. But for Nuccio there is no discussion: it is “his carrozzeria” and the Miura bears the “Bertone” signature.

The wedge line

Designers dare to come up with incredible proposals. The “wedge” line, cars that pierce the wind, is in fashion. Colin Chapman and Maurice Phillipe drive their Lotus 56 in the 1968 Indianapolis 500. Their shapes are inspiring and, transferred to the Lotus 72 of 1970, they make us feel that there was the root of our current F1.

But back to our subject. The wedge, the distinctive sign of an entire era. Paris 1968: the public crowds around a car 99 centimeters high. It is the Carabo, a creation by Gandini on an Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale chassis. Its wedge shape, the opening of its doors like the arms of an athlete rising towards the sky announcing victory. They are two basic features that, six years later, we will find in the form of photographs posted in the rooms, in the folders of millions of teenagers around the world: those of the Lamborghini Countach, a pure Gandini product without question.

And if we talk about a wedge, the Stratos Zero, the prototype of a Lancia that could pass under the entrance barrier of the Italian company's factory without the need for the guard to raise it. That prototype, with a Lancia Fulvia engine, created by Gandini, which would inspire one of the most emblematic cars in the history of rallying: the Lancia Stratos.

They are magical automobile monsters with character traits that reflect the personality of a man of character. Chrysler, owner of the Santa Agatha firm, to whom Ferruccio Lamborghini has sold his creature after financial problems, modifies the original design of the Diablo in Detroit. Marcello Gandini, enraged, takes up his original design for the Cizeta-Moroder, a supercar powered by two linked Ferrari V8 engines.

Gandini versus marketing

Bets on going out of the box, which lead to clashes with marketing departments. At the request of Renault, for their project 142 that will become the Renault 9 of 1980, Gandini designs a sedan that will be inspired by nothing less than their Ferrari Rainbow concept car from 1976. Those responsible for the diamond brand They consider it too avant-garde and tell the Italian that his proposal has been removed from the so-called “product tests.” Gandini responds that «if you reject my proposal it is because you want a normal car. It is what they have chosen to go to the product test. Thus, from the outset, they avoid risks. And then they reduce their responsibility by asking the public to say yes. To be sure that no one can say that the person responsible has made an error of taste or judgment. In other times things were not like this: there were people with the courage to assume responsibilities.

Although Gerard Opron, then head of Renault styling, managed to impose his criteria over Gandini's, when it came to the final design of the 9/11, one could not fail to see certain features of the Italian, especially in the front (and nothing in the later, by the way). And the dashboard design is by Gandini, by the way.

In this mention of Renault, we cannot leave aside the Gandini of the rhombus: the Alpine A310 Pack GT, the beastly mid-engine R5 Turbo, the Supercinco…

The “Gandini” on the street

We have gone from living room prototypes, from “dream cars”, to street cars. The list of these is not short, precisely. The 1982 Citroën BX is his work, although the original design is always altered by petty budgets, among many other conditions of the so-called “industrialization” of a model.

The BMW 5 Series (E 12) from 1972, born from its Garmisch prototype, is a Gandini that will mark the following years of the Bavarian house, like the Fiat, (our SEAT, 132…

The Audi 50, from 1974, which will become a Volkswagen Polo is also another creation of the Italian. Like the Innocenti Mini of 1979, considered by many experts as the only valid, acceptable creation, based on the brilliant Issigonis. Or the beautiful Fiat X1/9, with a mid-engine, clearly inspired by its Autobianchi Runabout prototype, from 1969.

Marcello Gandini has stopped drawing, his pencil has stopped forever. But the world is no longer the same. His Lamborghini Miura, Marzal, Espada, Jarama, Urraco, Bravo, Countach, Jalpa, Diablo…, his Alfa Carabo, the Lancia Stratos and Sibilo, Maserati Khamsin, Ferrari GT4, the Bugatti EB 110…, so many creations that make this one eternal great Italian.

The father who wanted him to become a classical pianist finally got over his disappointment in Marcello's choice of profession when they took him for his first ride in a Miura. “Only then,” said his son, “did he understand that I knew how to sound other notes: those of engines.”