Pininfarina
Pininfarina S.p.A. is an Italian car design firm and coachbuilder, with headquarters in Cambiano, Turin, Italy. The company was founded by Battista "Pinin" Farina in 1930. On 14 December 2015, the Indian multinational Mahindra Group acquired 76.06% of Pininfarina S.p.A. for about €168 million.
Pininfarina is employed by a wide variety of automobile manufacturers to design vehicles. These firms have included long-established customers such as Ferrari, Alfa Romeo, Peugeot, Fiat, GM, Lancia and Maserati, to Asian companies such as Honda in Japan, AviChina, Chery, Changfeng, Brilliance, JAC in China, VinFast in Vietnam, and Korean manufacturers Daewoo and Hyundai.
Since the 1980s, Pininfarina has also designed high-speed trains, convertibles, buses, trams, rolling stocks, automated light rail cars, people movers, yachts, airplanes, and private jets. Since the 1986 creation of "Pininfarina Extra", it has consulted on industrial design, interior design, architecture, and graphic design. Pininfarina was run by Battista's son Sergio Pininfarina until 2001, then his grandson Andrea Pininfarina until he died in 2008. After Andrea's death, his younger brother Paolo Pininfarina was appointed CEO.
At its height in 2006, the Pininfarina Group employed 2,768 people, with subsidiary company offices throughout Europe, Morocco, and the United States. As of 2012, with the end of the automotive production series, employment has shrunk to 821. Pininfarina is registered and publicly traded on the Milan Stock Exchange, Borsa Italiana.
History
Specialist coachbuilder
When automobile designer and builder Battista "Pinin" Farina broke away from his brother's coachbuilding firm, Stabilimenti Farina, in 1928, he founded "Carrozzeria Pinin Farina" with financial help from his wife's family and Vincenzo Lancia. That first year, the firm employed eighteen and built 50 automobile bodies.On 22 May 1930 papers were filed to become a corporation, Società anonima Carrozzeria Pinin Farina headquartered in Turin, Italy, at 107 Corso Trapani. During the 1930s, the company built bodies for Lancia, Alfa Romeo, Isotta Fraschini, Hispano-Suiza, Fiat, Cadillac, and Rolls-Royce. With its close relationship with Lancia, the pioneer of the monocoque in automobile design, Farina became the first coachbuilder to build bodies for the new technique also known as unibody construction. This development happened in the mid-1930s when others saw the frameless construction as the end of the independent coachbuilder.
In 1939, World War II ended automobile production, but the company had 400 employees building 150 bodies monthly. The war effort against the Allies brought work making ambulances and searchlight carriages. The Pinin Farina factory was destroyed by Allied bombers, ending the firm's operations.
After World War II
After the war, Italy was banned in 1946 Paris Motor Show. The Paris show was attended by 809,000 visitors, and queues stretched from the main gate to the Seine. Pinin Farina and his son Sergio, determined to defy the ban, drove two of their cars from Turin to Paris and found a place at the entrance to the exhibition to display the two new creations. The managers of the Grand Palais said of the display, "the devil Pinin Farina", but to the press and the public, it was the successful "Turin coachbuilder's anti-salon".At the end of 1945, the Cisitalia 202 Coupé was designed. An elegantly proportioned design with a low hood, it is the car that usually is given credit for establishing Pinin Farina's reputation. The Pinin Farina design was honored in the Museum of Modern Art's landmark presentation "Eight Automobiles" in 1951. A total of 170 Coupés were produced by Pinin Farina.
The publicity of the Museum of Modern Art exhibit brought Pinin Farina to the attention of Nash-Kelvinator managers. The subsequent cooperation with Nash Motors resulted in high-volume production of Pinin Farina designs and provided a significant entry into the United States market. In 1952, Farina visited the U.S. for the unveiling of his design for the Nash Ambassador and Statesman lines, which, although they did carry some details of Pinin Farina's design, were primarily designed by Nash's then-new in-house styling staff when the original Farina-designed model proved unsuited to American tastes, exhibiting a popular 1950s appearance called "ponton". The Nash-Healey sports car body was, however, completely designed and assembled with Nash drivetrains in limited numbers from 1952 until 1954 at Pinin Farina's Turin facilities. Nash heavily advertised its link to the famous Italian designer, much as Studebaker promoted its longtime association with Raymond Loewy. As a result of Nash's million advertising campaign, Pinin Farina became well known in the U.S.
Pinin Farina also built the bodies for the limited-series Cadillac Eldorado Brougham for General Motors in 1959 and 1960. They were assembled in Italy and shipped back to the U.S. There were 99 Broughams built in 1959 and 101 in 1960. A similar arrangement was repeated in the late 1980s when Pininfarina designed the Cadillac Allanté at the San Giusto Canavese factory. The car bodies were assembled and painted in Italy before being flown from the Turin International Airport to Detroit for final vehicle assembly.
Ferrari partnership
It started in 1951 with a meeting at a restaurant in Tortona, a small town halfway between Turin and Modena. This neutral territory was chosen because neither Farina nor Enzo Ferrari wanted to meet at the other's headquarters. Battista's son, Sergio Pininfarina recalled, "It is not difficult to imagine how I felt that afternoon when my father, without taking his eyes off the road for one moment, told me his decision as we drove back to Turin: "From now on you'll be looking after Ferrari, from A to Z. Design, engineering, technology, construction—the lot!"—I was over the moon with happiness."Since that meeting, a 61-year relationship endured where the only road-going production Ferrari not designed by Pininfarina was the 1973 Dino 308 GT4. Their relationship was so close that Pininfarina became a partner of Ferrari in "Scuderia Ferrari SpA SEFAC", the organization that ran Ferrari's race team from 1961 until 1989, Pinin was a vice president of Ferrari, and Sergio later sat on Ferrari's board of directors.
However, this special relationship came to an end with the 2012-17 Ferrari F12berlinetta, the last model entirely penned by Pininfarina, while Centro Stile Ferrari has designed each car since 2013's LaFerrari.
Large-scale manufacturing
From 1954 until 1955, Pinin Farina purchased land in Grugliasco, outside Turin, for a new factory. "The factory in no way would look like the one of Corso Trapani. It would be a car no longer on my measurements but those of my children, built looking like them; I had this in mind and wanted it," said Farina.Around the same time, Alfa Romeo accepted Pininfarina's design over Bertone for the new Giulietta Spider. The Alfa was the first vehicle that Pinin Farina produced in large numbers. Alfa Romeo chose Pinin Farina to make the Spider mainly because they felt confident they could produce 20 cars daily for a run of 1,000 bodies. The Spider was a massive success for Alfa Romeo and Pinin Farina. Max Hoffman, the importer for the United States, said he could sell as many as they could make. In 1958, the first year of production, they produced 1,025 units, which then expanded to over 4,000 units in 1959, the first full year of the new Grugliasco factory.
Second generation of leadership
Starting with planning the new plant in Grugliasco in 1956, Farina began to groom his replacements–Sergio, his son, and Renzo Carli, his son-in-law. To his heirs apparent, Farina said of the Corso Trapani facility, "This old plant has reached the limits of its growth. It has no room for expansion and is far from being up to date. If I were alone, I'd leave it as it is. But I want you to decide which way to go–to stay as we are or to enlarge. Either way is fine with me. It's your decision, and I don't want to know what it is. I'm finished, and it's your time to take over. The future is absolutely up to you." In 1958, upon leaving for a world tour, Farina added, "In my family, we inherit our legacies from live people–not from the dead."Change of corporate name to Pininfarina
In 1961, at 68, "Pinin" Farina formally turned his firm over to his son, Sergio, and his son-in-law, Renzo Carli. The same year, the President of Italy formally authorized the change of Farina's last name to Pininfarina, and the business took on the same name.Pininfarina was run by Battista's grandson Andrea Pininfarina from 2001 until he died in 2008. Andrea's younger brother Paolo Pininfarina was appointed successor. Paolo died in April 2024.
Modernizing for a new world
Starting in the mid-1960s, Pininfarina started investing in the science of automotive design, a strategy to differentiate itself from the other Italian coachbuilders.In 1966, Pininfarina opened the Studies and Research Centre in Grugliasco. The research centre occupied 8,000 sq. metres and employed 180 technicians to produce 25 prototypes yearly.
The Calculation and Design Centre was set up in 1967, the first step in the process of technological evolution that, during the 1970s, would take Pininfarina into the lead in automated bodywork design.
Then in 1972 construction of a full-sized wind tunnel was completed. The project was started in 1966. When it opened, it was the first wind tunnel with the ability to test full-sized cars in Italy and one of the first in the world with this ability. For example, GM's full-sized wind tunnel did not open until 1980.
New infrastructure and expansion
The 1980s started a period of expansion for Pininfarina.In 1982, the company opened "Pininfarina Studi e Ricerche" in Cambiano. It was separate from the factory and wind tunnel in Grugliasco to keep design and research activities independent from manufacturing. On 14 October 2002, Pininfarina inaugurated a new engineering center. The new facility, built at the Cambiano campus, gave greater visibility and independence to the engineering operations.
In 1983, Pininfarina reached an agreement with General Motors to design and build the Cadillac Allanté. The Allanté project led to the building of the San Giorgio factory in 1985.
In 1996, Mitsubishi entered into talks for Pininfarina to build their new compact SUV, the Pajero, in Italy. While Mitsubishi recognized Pininfarina's expertise in design and engineering, the reason for choosing them was that manufacturing costs were half of those in Germany. After entering into an agreement in 1996, Pininfarina purchased an industrial site at Bairo Canavese near Turin, Italy. in April 1997, Bairo Canavese was dedicated to the production of the new Mitsubishi Pajero Pinin.
Pininfarina Sverige AB in Uddevalla, Sweden, was established in 2003 as a joint venture between Volvo Cars and Pininfarina to produce a new Volvo convertible that will be sold in Europe and the United States. The JV is owned 60% by Pininfarina and 40% by Volvo. The C70 model designed by Volvo's John Kinsey—was launched on 13 April 2006, sharing the Volvo P1 platform used in the S40.