Let’s try to summarise your key suggestions, the secrets to make a prototype:
– Being in a small group of people
– It’s essential. Because they’re things which you make mainly based on sensations, rather than through large meetings. The car isn’t something artistic, but it’s an activity of the mind anyway… even of the child’s unconscious mind. When I was little, I dreamed about cars and there’s something which accompanied me through the years. Personally speaking, I never got scared when doing something new or different, a white sheet never intimidated me, I actually always loved a white sheet. I could start completely from zero, mechanics, bodywork, construction method. The white sheet is stimulating.
– Let’s go back to the individual work
– I had a certain success with a small project, relating to the reduction of the surface in plants for the construction of cars. The purpose of the study, was to reduce the number of workers, of working hours, of the cost of plants, both in terms of construction and of management: in brief, it means reducing size.
I dealt with the topic of the study inappropriately… I mean, I did everything on my own, a whole car, engine included. It was very challenging and, so, I had to work without too much self-criticism, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to do anything.
– Reducing the size also means reducing the incidence of pollution
– To do all of this you mainly need to change car. In certain plants you try to improve product and reduce costs through robots and you do obtain something. My view was more drastic. The ambition of my project was to reduce the size of plants a lot. In order to build a car, you need to: buy a plot of land, build a plant, you need to equip the plant with all of the equipment… then there are management costs… the sum of all expenses needs to be divided by the number of the cars manufactured inside the plant. If the plant is halved, expenses are immediately halved. I’ve shown this to several car manufacturers, Fiat included, back then there was engineer Ghidella. When I signed with Renault, Fiat’s engineer s engineer phoned me the following day because he was interested.
– Working on your own or with few people, because too many heads may be a cause for confusion?
– At the time of the Carabo, I had the ambition to create myself an office inside Bertone’s. I had two young minds, as collaborators, who had never worked before. A certain Boscairol, very likeable and very good, he could draw quite well, he was a smart man who knew how to evaluate the situation. I had excellent relationships with my collaborators, I always did what I wanted. I always asked for the opinion of others, because it’s important. When we made the Stratos – we had just presented the Countach in Geneva – we didn’t receive any indications from Lancia, so I went ahead following my own ideas. Together with the two collaborators, we started to make a real size prototype… one of the two had also made the drawings and they were very much based on what I had done with the Countach. In this case, the topic was completely different, but I let him go ahead with it because if you continue to say no, you aren’t stimulating. When the model was drafted, it wasn’t exactly what I would have wanted, but I’m certain that they realised about it too.
– We had the task to present the car at the Turin exhibition, in August everybody went away on holiday while myself and three shapers, the best I had, stayed. Once in a while, I went for a ride on the Guzzi… in any case, in three weeks, I made the Stratos without drawings, they never existed. I used to trace the parts which were to be cut directly out of plywood. When they got back from the holidays, everybody from Lancia came to see the car, which only had a coat of Ducotone and some carboard instead of windows… clearly, it wasn’t the best and they put a long face on. Personally speaking, I wasn’t concerned because I was very well aware of what the final result would have been. When we presented the prototype… the long faces became smiles. The rally car didn’t need to be beautiful, but it won, the beauty would have remained at least!
– Doing what we like and doing it fast and without doubts
– Of course, that’s very important. You need to overcome any doubts, even if you do something which isn’t exactly what you would have wanted. For example: for the Marzal, I needed to use an engine from the Lamborghini Miura turned the wrong way round and cut in half. My project envisioned that the sense of rotation would have been inverted, without knowing beforehand if anybody would have done it. We made the car and then Lamborghini, the ever so good and polite engineers Stanzani and Dallara, were happy to do it. I mean, I started to draw something let’s say in October, then we needed to make the model, the construction, the whole prototype which was complicated, to get to Geneva in early March. No afterthoughts were possible and, all in all, it was lucky because, had I thought about it a bit too long, I wouldn’t have done it or I wouldn’t have done it the same… maybe it would have been better or, maybe, worse.
– Without listening to others and without being influenced
– I had no ideas to begin with. I have a mentality; I have a baggage which I gathered from birth. I have feelings and, sometimes, you need to guess the utopistic channel.
– Do you mean the public’s?
– Yes, what they’re wishing for in their wildest dreams… it doesn’t always happen, ugly things were also made.
– You managed to guess the channel very well from the very beginning, you were a young and very sensitive observer, in fact, Nuccio Bertone wanted you with him
– Bertone saw my drawings and he wanted to hire me straight away, but if I arrived, Giugiaro would have left… he left anyway, but two or three years later, out of his own volition.
After our first meeting, Bertone promised to hire me… some time went by and I didn’t hear back. I called him and the secretary made up an excuse. Back then, I had the habit that on Saint Joseph’s Day I went to Liguria with my friend for a swim. We were in Capo Mimosa, we parked by the sea shore, organised with our tent. It had been a few months since my meeting with Nuccio and by chance, who do I see? Bertone with his future wife. I was lying sunbathing on the Simca Chambord Vedette’s bonnet. He approached me and he made up a lot of excuses. He confessed that he had been a bit influenced by Giugiaro.
– Is there a project that influenced you more than others?
– The project purchased by Mr Tata. It was a very fun job.
He came here, to my house, in person; I had already met him in India. He had seen me in Mumbai, in the late hours, in his office, for five minutes… in such a short time, he understood everything of my study and he was excited. He sent his general director straight away asking for quotes and we made several prototypes after that, with the idea I developed.
The presentation of one of the prototypes took place exactly in this garden. The car was fully dismantled and in the space of a quarter of an hour, we assembled it by hand, with two or three workmen… we also took a drive around the garden…. There is also another occasion where I had a personal success which I loved like crazy.
– Tell us about it.
– I went to Japan, to a car manufacturer, for a project. In 1966, thirty years before this meeting, I carried out a study for a Japanese constructor and I had collaborated with an employee of that company. Thirty years later, this Japanese man was retired and he came from Hiroshima, where I had my appointment, paying for it out of his own pocket. It was a gesture I found moving. He remembered the nice collaboration we had thirty years before. Sometimes, you receive satisfactions which could apparently not appear that special but they have a great importance in your life.
This day is perfect, not only because I met my idol, the master of the Italian design. We spent a pleasant autumn morning, talking amongst acquaintances, without purpose, for the simple pleasure of discussing our opinions in relation to curiosities, tales and considerations. The meeting with Marcello Gandini was a life lesson for me, with the priority of respecting others, as well as humanity meant as a virtue, as an attitude and as openness towards others. The power of humility as an ability to open up to the world to be left speechless by stupor hidden in the simplest of things.
– What will be the future of cars? We will need to face many challenges such as the climate, the pollution…
Electric cars will certainly be… I never felt any sympathy towards hydrogen. I drove a hydrogen car for the first time in Japan. When I looked below it, there was a glass to collect water which was expelled after forming electricity, starting from hydrogen and oxygen, I drank it and the public clapped their hands. It was my way to demonstrate I understood.
– Will electric cars be the solution?
Many years ago, the Centro Stile Renault, contacted me about the car, to find out what my view was and as if I was stupid, I answered “the problem of today’s batteries is that they don’t allow for decent autonomy, but the main problem is regulatory: if the use of cars in the city was forbidden in the future, electric cars would spread immediately. People would adapt to recharge them even every 100 km…” I have always been too honest!
– Have you ever been tempted to put an engine in your living room?
No, I have been very tempted to create one of my very own!
– Have you gifted Meccano to your grandchildren?
They no longer make Meccano in iron with gears, at least, we haven’t found it yet. We want to gift it to Pietro, our grandson who isn’t very technological at all, but he’s very manual.
– You’ve always been very modest, even when you say “I realised after 50 years I had a career”
Yes, that’s right, I used to say “how come, is this it?”
Back Chapter 1
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Back Chapter 3
Special thanks to photographer Angelo Rosa, who made this meeting possible. To the cordial hospitality of the Gandini family, Marcello and Claudia. Thanks also to Laura, Francesca and Sabina’s endless patience.
Written by Daniela Borrini
Ph by Angelo Rosa