“After fifty years and some hundreds of cars, just one was missing”, says Giorgetto Giugiaro to explain the GG50, the Ferrari he presented at the Tokyo Show and with which he celebrates his half century in the design business. The name of the car, based on the 612 Scaglietti, is significant: GG50, where GG stands for Giorgetto Giugiaro, 50 the career goal he has reached.
Of the 612 Scaglietti, the GG50 preserves all the mechanicals unchanged, but the body has undergone substantial modification. First, the Ferrari flagship is cut from three to two boxes: shorter by 9 centimetres, it loses 2 at the nose and fully 7 at the tail. The other element that largely determines the new image is the decided tapering of the four corners that soften the contours of the car from above and that offer in three-quarter view a more compact feeling. The interior, which retains the same instrumentation but not the same dashboard as the 612 Scaglietti has been re-arranged ergonomically by working on a full-sized dummy.
The idea of the GG50 was born in September 2004 at the Paris Show. The first sketches go back to February 2005. Then followed the mathematics, the three-dimensional image – virtual – in 1:1 scale, and finally the full size model, completed in April, on whose tail Giorgetto Giugiaro personally drew the prancing horse with a pencil, to his great amusement.
The interior has been conditioned by the car’s wheelbase, unchanged at 2.95 metres; but Giugiaro decided to eliminate the cramped sensation of the rear seats by tapering the side window towards the tail so as to raise the roof line and facilitate on board access.
The article continues in Auto & Design no. 156
