Collectors & Aficionados
Marcello Gandini and his masterpieces
Marcello Gandini, the designer behind iconic cars like the Lancia Stratos and Lamborghini Miura, believes that modern car design is limited by too many constraints and that car manufacturers play it too safe.
They say that car design today has so many constraints that cars turn out quite similar to one another and, in many respects, are less creative than they were in the past. We asked Marcello Gandini, the author of the magical including those of the Lancia Stratos, Lamborghini Miura and Countach, Alfa Carabo and Montreal and many other masterpieces, what his thoughts were on this assumption “It’s true, there are many limits, but this is a plus: when things get difficult it is the most capable that emerge.” Agreeable and irreproachable, so why is it that today’s cars tend towards boring? “During the course of my career I have tried to design cars that excite but by all accounts it would seem to be difficult to make cars that excite nowadays: everyone looks at the cars everyone else makes, the most successful ones. I have always been sceptical about the way in which certain companies think that leaves little room for the imagination.”
1968. The miraculous Miura
This analysis is as simple as it is truthful: car manufacturers feel the pressure of a possible failure and end up playing it safe. Even with electric cars you still don't see any evidence of real fantasy “there are regulations to be respected there too but in reality, there is plenty of space for manoeuvre (the lack of bulky engines, radiators, exhaust pipes, catalysts and so on)”. It would be nice to see the magnificent hand of Marcello Gandini called in to accept a challenge for the world that awaits us.
