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Marcello Gandini, the famous designer, died suddenly today 13 March in Rivoli (Turin) at the age of 85.
Known for having designed some of the most innovative Italian cars starting from the Sixties. Succeeding Giorgetto Giugiaro, he was chief designer of Bertone, for which he designed some of the most popular sports cars between the Sixties and Seventies, such as the Lamborghini Miura, Espada, Urraco and Countach, the Alfa Romeo Montreal, the Lancia Stratos, the Fiat X1/9 and the Ferrari GT4. He also collaborated with Innocenti of Milan, which led to the presentation of the new Mini 90/120 in 1974, which remained in production for almost twenty years. Gandini was not only interested in the automotive sector, but also in industrial design and furniture.
And just on January 12th the Polytechnic of Turin awarded him an honorary degree in Mechanical Engineering. The funeral chapel will be set up in his studio in Almese (Turin) tomorrow from 3pm to 7pm and Friday morning from 10am to 12pm.
During the ceremony for the awarding of the honorary degree, Gandini had given a highly applauded lectio magistralis, in which he recalled his classical studies, the piano school and the key moment in which, with the money received from the family to buy a book of Latin, he instead managed to obtain Dante Giacosa’s famous text ‘Endothermic Engines’. “My father – he had said – was an orchestra conductor and wanted to make me become a pianist. Only when he got aboard the Lamborghini Miura did he understand that I knew how to make other notes play: those of the engines. The origins of my education lie in a family tradition that did not contemplate many digressions: the natural outlet was humanistic, literary and classical studies. But I rebelled and followed my own path.”
After having made automotive history with celebrated models such as the Lamborghini Diablo and the Maserati Biturbo and Chubasco, and having collaborated as an independent designer with car manufacturers such as Renault, Nissan, Toyota and Subaru, his commitment has recently focused on research and on innovation, obtaining a series of patents. At 85 he had never stopped working, his next project was supposed to be in Qatar, where he was working on a training platform for the Doha car museum. “Marcello Gandini – said the rector of the Polytechnic Guido Saracco on the occasion of the ceremony – is an innovator. He was able to combine a very high aesthetic taste with cutting-edge engineering and technological solutions, contributing to improving the entire industrial design process”.