Lone Stars: the Eighties

Automotive design milestones are often one-offs. __Lorenzo Ramaciotti__ guides us through a remarkable story.

Throughout the history of the automobile, there have been numerous lone stars which, when you take a look at them today, continue to shine with their own light. None of them were created to become production cars, but rather to send out a message that was uninhibited by industrial and marketing constraints, signed by designers and the manufacturers themselves. Here comes the next part of our series on Lone Stars, based on intensive conversations with renowned Italian designer Lorenzo Ramaciotti: the 1980ies.

The years of sacrifice and protests gave way to hedonism strongly linked to the liberalism of the then US Republican president, Ronald Reagan. Square shapes were abandoned for the emergence of biodesign. Among the lone stars of this decade, place of honour here goes to the 1986 Corvette Indy, a true icon of biodesign without a single hard edge. Another significant example is the Pininfarina Mythos, a monument to post Testarossa ostentation. With the elegance and grace that distinguishes him, Ramaciotti, the car’s father, fears a conflict of interest. But the car is more than worthy of a mention, no matter who penned it.