An overview of Pininfarina’s highly diversified activities to celebrate its 75 years in business as well as a uniquely important display on its stand at the Paris Motor Show. The Cover Story in this issue of Auto & Design features a whole series of thoughts, interviews and updates supplied by the key players in a company that became something of a legend for determined management and quality products in the 20th century and is tackling the 21st with ever-increasing dynamism.
Now that its recent acquisition, the French company Matra, is fully integrated into the Group, Pininfarina could present itself in Paris in all the multifaceted glory of a diversity that is both geographical and professional. It did this by dividing its stand into three sections characterised by different coloured panels. There were red panels for Design exemplified by two styling models created by Pininfarina for outside clients: the Ferrari F430 and the Peugeot 1007. Silver was for Engineering and featured the Safe City Car Project. Identified by dark blue panels, the third section was devoted to manufacturing and featured two different SUV bodies based on a single platform supplied by Matra. This issue also prints two interviews, one with Managing Director Andrea Pininfarina, and one with Lorenzo Ramaciotti and Ken Okuyama, respectively Vice President and Director of Design at Pininfarina. The final report in this Cover Story is dedicated to Pininfarina Extra, the division concerned with industrial design.
Paolo Pininfarina, its Managing Director, clearly explains the genesis and evolution of a particularly propitious period in the life of Pininfarina Extra. Over the past two decades, the company has given ample proof of its ability to establish long-term relations with its clients, while constantly innovating, seeking out new sectors and new markets. One example is the U.S. mobile phone market where Extra has recently established a partnership that looks likely to keep them very busy indeed.
The article continues in Auto & Design no. 148
