The story of a success that has already lasted seventy years and continues to expand and evolve, constantly on the watch for new automotive territories to explore. The official opening of the Pininfarina Engineering Centre on October 14 added another new piece to the amazing creative mosaic that is Pininfarina. The current issue of Auto & Design traces the steps that have led to this latest addition to the activities of a Group which can now claim to offer “full cycle” partnership in the automotive service sector.
Knowledge of the history of the coachbuilding firm founded by Pinin Farina, backed up by a conversation with Andrea Pininfarina, the Group’s current Managing Director helps to explain why the management decided to invest 20 million euros in this project at a time when the car market is struggling to say the least.
The answer was revealed on the day of the official opening when it was made clear that the entire Pininfarina Group was motivated by confidence in the future, a desire for growth and diversification and also by the urge to establish a dialogue between Pininfarina’s traditional vocation for pure design and its more recent operations like manufacturing and design engineering.
That dialogue is now underlined by the physical layout of the Pininfarina facilities. While engineering operations for in-house clients were previously based in Grugliasco close to the production plant, the new Engineering Centre has been built at Cambiano only a few yards away from the premises of Pininfarina Studi e Ricerche. In fact the two buildings face each other across a lawn as if to underline the fact that their two spheres of operation now proceed hand-in-hand and are closely interelated.
The article continues in Auto & Design no. 136
