Duet in design: The Seventies

How Pininfarina and Zagato revolutionised the shape of the automobile.

Pininfarina and Zagato are the undisputed design stars in the history of the Italian automobile. Numerous icons of today's Classic Cars show their signature and this history continues: Today, simulators from the design kitchen of Pininfarina and Zagato are the key to the virtual world of Classic Cars on Roarington. In a new series, we take a look back at the heyday of Italian car design and show two icons each from Pininfarina and Zagato, arranged by decade. In our fourth instalment of this series, we are in the 1970s and show the Fiat 130 Coupe produced from end of the sixties till 1977 and designed by Pininfarina and the 1972 Alfa Romeo GT by Zagato.

Fiat 130 Coupe: Modern bodywork

By the end of the 1960s, even Italy's most popular holiday resorts were beginning to be populated by German luxury coupes, which were slowly establishing themselves at the top end of the market. The Fiat group had not yet acquired Lancia (1969), which at the time was the top Italian luxury car brand. The Turin-based company therefore decided to embark on a difficult mission: to win over a refined and demanding public looking for a powerful, comfortable and elegant car. The Fiat 130 Coupé was developed from the 130 saloon and first shown in 1971. Compared to the previous 2300, it offered a tauter and more modern bodywork: its minimal lines marked the transition to a stylistic language marked by horizontality. To define the styling of the new coupé, Fiat sought the support of Pininfarina, which, through the work of Paolo Martin, outlined the modern and refined profile of the 130 Coupé. The Fiat 130 Coupé proposed a new concept of luxury saloon cars: the volumes and profiles, the door and window cuts became squarer and more modern, in a pleasant contrast with the creases that caressed the front and side panels. The headlights and front grille were new and linear: a simple interplay of rectangles that gave the car a darker ‘look’. It is an iconic Pininfarina car and representative of this decade because of its pure and simple forms. It represents Pininfarina's adherence to a stylistic fashion with taut, square forms to which it has never adhered viscerally. In this case, the Turin-based coach-builder managed to do so tastefully, pursuing the search for proportions, using a detached approach and timeless style. Fiat 130 Coupe

Alfa Romeo GT: Exuberant mechanics

The rapid growth of the Western population at the end of the 1960s, the explosion in the size of large urban centres with rising levels of traffic, air and noise pollution, created an aura of discontent around the car. In this turbulent environment, Italian design centres decided to come up with less engaging, subdued forms, so as not to emphasise the emotional side of the car over that of pure function. In this context, the Alfa Romeo Giulia coupé, with its exuberant mechanics, lent itself to various interpretations. In 1969, Zagato introduced their proposal with a decidedly innovative design for the period. Large windows, taut and highly aerodynamic lines, a compact body, light-weight materials and, obviously, a high, truncated tail. This vehicle had all of Zagato’s distinctive elements in its styling. It was first shown to the public in 1969 with the Alfa Romeo Giulia GT Junior Z name, powered by a 1300 cc engine. The Giulia GT Zagato 1.6 (introduced in 1972) differed from the Junior Z in the tapering of the tail done by Arch. Giuseppe Mittino, who succeeded Ercole Spada as Zagato’s Head of Design in 1969. Thanks to this unusual but highly interesting model, Zagato became globally famous for introducing wedge-shaped cars to its range. This particular styling was a derivation of Kamm tail applications on the Giulietta SZ and TZ, which inspired a variety of cars of the time, such as the Alfa Romeo Alfasud Sprint, the Alfetta GTV, but also vehicles produced by Honda in the late ’70s. Alfa Romeo GT