Marcello Gandini
Marcello Gandini (26 August 1938 – 13 March 2024) was an Italian automobile designer born in Turin whose work at Bertone between 1965 and 1979 produced some of the most radical and influential cars ever built, redefining what a supercar could look like. His father was a conductor and composer who hoped Gandini would pursue music; Gandini left school at eighteen, driven by a passion for mechanical systems rather than styling, and developed his skills entirely independently. In 1964 he approached Nuccio Bertone, who was impressed but wanted to apprentice him to the studio’s existing chief designer, Giorgetto Giugiaro. The following year Giugiaro departed to form his own firm, and in 1965 — at age twenty-seven — Gandini was hired to take his place, becoming chief designer of Stile Bertone in Caprie, Turin. His first major assignment was the Lamborghini Miura, which he designed from first sketch to finished prototype in approximately three months; the Miura debuted at the 1966 Geneva Motor Show and, according to the journalist L.J.K. Setright who saw it there, inspired coinage of the word “supercar.”
Gandini’s work for Alfa Romeo produced two of the most visually consequential show cars of the post-war era, both on the Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale chassis. The Alfa Romeo Carabo — unveiled at the 1968 Paris Motor Show, built in just ten weeks — was constructed on the 33 Stradale’s mid-mounted 2.0-litre V8 (230 bhp at 8,800 rpm, 6-speed Colotti transmission, 250 km/h). Its iridescent green-and-orange colouring echoed the Carabidae beetle family from which the name derived. The Carabo was the first vehicle known to feature scissor doors — the upward-hinging mechanism later adopted for the Lamborghini Countach and subsequently across generations of supercars — and its acute wedge profile defined the visual language of supercar design through the 1970s. In 1976, Gandini produced the Alfa Romeo Navajo, the last of six concept cars built on the 33 Stradale chassis (Geneva Motor Show, March 1976). The wheelbase was extended to 2,430 mm; the fibreglass body weighed only 870 kg. It featured horizontally-extending retractable headlights (rather than the conventional pop-up), and an active adjustable rear wing and front splitter whose aerodynamic concept was put into production a decade later on the Bertone-designed Alfa Romeo 90. The Navajo now resides in the Museo Alfa Romeo. Gandini also designed the Alfa Romeo Montreal — originally a concept for the 1967 Montreal World Expo, entering production in 1970 as a 2+2 coupé.
Beyond Alfa, Gandini’s output at Bertone was extraordinary in range and influence: the Lamborghini Espada (1968, a dramatic four-seat GT), the Lamborghini Urraco (1972), the Lamborghini Countach LP500 (1971 prototype, 1974 production — a design so extreme it remained in production for sixteen years), the Lancia Stratos Zero concept (1970), the Maserati Khamsin (1974), the Ferrari Dino GT4 (1973), the Fiat X1/9 (1972), and the BMW 5 Series E12 (first generation, 1972). Gandini left Bertone in July 1979 and founded his own consultancy, Clama, thereafter working exclusively for Renault for five years (producing the second-generation Renault 5 Supercinq and the Renault Magnum truck) then freelancing across Maserati, Bugatti (EB110, 1991), Lamborghini (Diablo revisions), Citroën (BX, 1982), and others. He consistently described his design interests as prioritising “vehicle architecture, construction, assembly, and mechanisms over styling” — a characteristically unrhetorical self-assessment for a man whose cars were among the most dramatically styled of the twentieth century. Ferrari’s chief design officer Flavio Manzoni described him as “probably the greatest car designer ever.” In January 2024, the Polytechnic University of Turin awarded him an honorary degree in mechanical engineering; Marcello Gandini died in Turin on 13 March 2024, aged 85.
Connections
- Bertone — chief designer (Stile Bertone), 1965–1979; succeeded Giorgetto Giugiaro, source: wikipedia.org
- Alfa Romeo Tipo 33 — designed Carabo (1968) and Navajo (1976), both on 33 Stradale chassis, source: wikipedia.org
- Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale — designed Carabo (1968, first scissor-door car) and Navajo (1976), source: wikipedia.org
- Giorgetto Giugiaro — succeeded at Bertone, 1965, source: wikipedia.org