The confidence of your stroke in your drawings stands out. I was able to catch that you’re someone who’s always polite, reserved, calm, pondered… but the cars you created portray also something else: innovation, strength, determination, power.
– On one side, there is a component of politeness and mildness, while on the other, you think about how much you went through? In terms of fights, nails, competitions?
– Frankly, I have to admit that I didn’t have a difficult life. Clearly, there are difficult times in life. When I was 25 years old, I was desperate, for example, I couldn’t make ends meet.
– While afterwards, when you were more affirmed with you colleagues or competitors? Were there any interlocutors that were less pleasant? People with claws?
– Some were, but it’s funny when compared to what happens in the world. Yes, I had a few problems at work, because they didn’t want to pay me… but there are more unpleasant things in life. I never actually had real problems.
With clients?
I have to say that everything went quite smoothly. Even if there are always problems. Even with De Tomaso Alejandro, I always defend him, even if he had a bad reputation as a “bad payer”. De Tomaso courted me for many years because I met him when he had just arrived in Italy, he had the ambition to make race cars, but didn’t have a penny to his name. He arrived in Modena, he asked what the best hotel in the city was, they answered “Canal Grande” and he settled there. After a certain period of time, the hotel demanded he paid the balance, which he wasn’t able to pay, so they threw him out with a few nicknames. What did he do when he had the financial abilities? He bought the Canal Grande hotel; this has always entertained me a lot.
– Personally speaking, I didn’t accept his proposals, not so much due to his fame but because I was satisfied with what I was doing. When I was already self-employed from a few years, he tried again… Perego, a collaborator of his, an incredible chap who was very competent and patient, acted as the middle-man and compelled me to initiate a first collaboration. De Tommaso always treated me as if I was a prince, they paid me for things even prior to doing them, to better compel me. He only got offended once with me because he had a meeting at the Canal Grande hotel, at the end of every year, with journalists and collaborators and they would have stopped to sleep at the hotel afterwards. I attended the evening, but I went to sleep at the Fini hotel. He found out and he got tremendously offended, but that increased his consideration of me, meaning that I wasn’t an opportunist. Freedom is priceless.
– Previously, I heard about the Guzzi V7 Sport.
– Guzzi V7 Sport had done some drawings with a red chassis… Well, yes, I did something with motorbikes: I started driving them when I was 14 and then I did a few projects. With Innocenti, when the Innocenti were still there, I did a few things, a few Lambrettas, the Lui…
– I like the Lui a lot
– The idea was to create something a bit smaller and that was a bit innovative for the time! 
It might be the magic of the place and of the people that enables us to perceive a state of general harmony. While we’re savouring a delicious ice cream, I’m thinking about Marcello Gandini speeding on his motorbike.
– I was imagining you driving your V7, a motorbike which still has significant performance.
– My wife and I drove around the Dolomites on the Ducati V7. We were wearing seven T-shirts, because we never had the right equipment for the different activities… it was extremely cold, even if it was summer and then we stripped down little by little… without helmet, without anything, they were different times and we were young.
– Can you remember the Moto Guzzi Superalce 500CC Carabiniere?
– It was fun! I remember I was young, we used to have our Sunday day trip with the family, and these Guzzi or maybe a BSA drove past us, with the man sitting very low down. The seat was low, to be able to touch the ground with the feet, and behind there was a big woman who dominated him from the above. It was a scene that made us laugh a lot. There was a seat behind too, with visible springs, these poor men with these ladies sitting behind them made me laugh a lot as, in the memory of a child, these women were always very voluptuous.
– Would you define yourself as an artist, like your father or your brother?
– No, I refuse this. I don’t consider cars to be a work of art though.
– You don’t think that cars are a work of art? – Personally speaking, I don’t, but it shares with art the fact that it generates emotions, as we mentioned previously about beauty. In my opinion, in any case, it’s something very different. It has some connection with sculpture. Cars have the same needs as a sculpture, that of giving emotions and the fact that they’re three dimensional. Sculptures have that too, if you take the Daid and you walk around it, you have the sensation that it’s something alive, that it’s a person. – As a consequence, you don’t consider your creations to be works of art. – No, but…
– After a break to collect his thoughts, Marcello Gandini continues…
– Well… if I look at the Stratos and I look at it from different angles, I don’t stand there immobile, I move around the car in a certain way, there is a sort of exchange between those looking and the car. You can feel different feelings towards the same item. For example, I have to admit that this relationship with certain cars actually exists. It may be a consideration that actually does exist.
– You spent 14 years with Bertone, what are the areas where you influenced each other?
– We had very distinct roles: Nuccio Bertone was the entrepreneur and he was good at his job. I needed to make the cars and I have to say he never stuck his nose in that. He used to tell me “What shall we do for the next exhibition in Geneva?”, most of the times I used to make an effort to see what to do. His need was that of presenting something new every year, especially in Geneva He always wanted something innovative and it was my job to decide on “what and how”. Two separate and independent roles, in fact, we never had any problems.
– Complete freedom
– Yes, absolutely. I did what I wanted. In many occasions, he didn’t even know what I was doing. We tried to do our best in our respective roles.
– Do you own one of your creations?
– I had some production cars, such as the BMW, the Mini… when they stopped manufacturing the Countach – Lamborghini had to stop the production as it could no longer be homologated – they suggested about giving me one. I thought long and hard about it and then I answered “thank you, you’re very kind, but I’ll need to dust it afterwards! It takes up space which I need for other things”. Driving around in a Lamborghini must be pleasant… when I was young though, I wouldn’t see myself driving it at my age. They were a bit baffled by my choice.
– Acute hexagonite? The hexagon, the wedge, what is the origin of that?
– When we made a car, we needed some characteristic and innovative items, which were different from what had already been seen. I decided for the hexagon, on the Lamborghini Miura first, then a different kind of hexagons on the Marzal, both on the back window and in other parts in the interior. It was one of the characteristic items I had proposed. The problem was that you needed to make a grid where the air passed, you also needed to see through it, but it shouldn’t have altered the shape of the car. The grid made with the hexagon was a valid alternative to the one made with the rectangles, which already existed, just like the one with the parallel sticks and so, in order
– You differentiated yourself in several details
– The scissor doors, introduced with the Alfa Romeo Carabo and then adopted by the Countach, I made them because they conveyed a different feeling… with a lot of uncertainties, because I don’t think that doors made like that are something logical. As the one in charge of building prototypes, I had to study something. I had a problem, and I was the only one who had it, that if a car was capsized, the driver would have not been able to get out of it. Therefore, I had studied an artifice: they were scissor doors fixed with some cones, they were blocked by a lever which unhooked the door in the event it got capsized. The door was ejected, so that the passengers could get out. For the second prototype, I worked a lot on it to devise a door which could be unhooked and then the parent company told me “No” and they didn’t want it. Then, there were many imitations and with all of them, if the car gets capsized, you cannot get out.
– We talked about the wedge grid, the scissor doors, I remember the genius idea of the Countach’s rear wheel arches… in any case, which style exercise gave you more satisfaction?
– I don’t think there are great ideas, I didn’t invent penicillin, they are some small ideas I had. If someone never builds prototypes, that doesn’t design cars, they cannot have those ideas. But if you do it habitually, like I did for a number of years, once in a while you may get some small ideas, even if they’re minor. So, when we needed to prepare the prototype for the exhibitions, we looked for something different, new or superficially new. And I’ll guarantee that you do get these small ideas. I did many other things and, in my opinion, I did many other things and, in my opinion they’re small ideas… it saves no child, nothing at all.
– One of the few names, for Lamborghini, who is distant from the bulls’ world: Countach
– It’s a Piedmontese filler word which literally means “contagion, plague”, meant as “damnation”. A worker used to say “Countach” every three words! This name came from the spirit of being in a group… and that night, there was also Bob Wallace, we said, “let’s call it Countach”. When you work at night, actually, for several consecutive nights, you create a spirit of frond, a way to reward yourself from the night’s effort, you laugh a bit. “Countach” isn’t a nice word, but it’s also used as a statement of admiration, surprise, stupor… “Damn”!
– What was the name of your collaborator who always said “Countach”, a curious statement that became very famous? –
Yes, he came directly from life, from the day to day. Mr. Renaudo, Teresio was his first name, was pretty much two metres tall, with two very large hands and he made small parts, the jobs relating to small details such as locks. He passed away very young; he was a very likeable man… He always got on very well with me, even if he was a very peculiar man and he only spoke in Piedmontese dialect.
Written by Daniela Borrini
Ph Angelo Rosa