Renzo Rivolta - engineer

Entrepreneur who invented the ‘bubble car’

Rivolta's Isetta filled a gap in the auto market
between motorcycles and scooters and cars

Renzo Rivolta, the businessman and engineer behind the ‘bubble car’ phenomenon of the 1950s, was born in Desio, a town in Lombardy about 20km (12 miles) north of Milan, on this day in 1908.

A visionary entrepreneur, Rivolta conceived the three-wheeled vehicle as a crossover between a motorcycle and a car, to bridge the gap in the market between conventional motorcycles and scooters and Italy’s cheapest car, the Fiat Topolino.

Named the Isetta, the car was essentially egg-shaped with just about room for two adults on the one seat. The nose section was also the access door, with a rack attached to the rear to carry a small amount of luggage. Because of its shape and bubble-like windows, it became known as a bubble car.

In the event, it was not particularly successful in Italy, yet it was a hit with buyers in other parts of Europe and in South America, where it was produced under licence.  

In Germany it is remembered as the car that saved BMW.  The company’s decision to invest in the Isetta, sold in Germany as the BMW Isetta 250, enabled a postwar recovery that was in serious doubt with the market in luxury cars slow to pick up.

Renzo Rivolta's business began
by manufacturing refrigerators

The first BMW Isettas rolled off the production line in 1955 and eventually more than 160,000 were sold. Isettas were built under licence in Argentina, Brazil, Spain, Belgium, France and the United Kingdom. Unlike the version produced in England, the German Isetta had four wheels as opposed to three, albeit with the rear two wheels positioned closer together than the front.

The car also sparked a rash of copies, with companies in Europe such as Messerschmitt, Heinkel, Vespa and Renault producing their own microcars. Britain’s roads saw the Peel P50, the Scootacar and the Bond Bug follow the trend, their popularity helped by road tax on three-wheelers being the same as for two-wheeled vehicles. 

Renzo Rivolta’s family in Desio were in the lumbar business. As a young man, as well as studying engineering, he had a passion for cars, motorcycles and speed boats, in all of which he raced. The Monza motor racing circuit was just a few kilometres from the family home.

One of his earliest business ventures, however, involved none of those things but refrigerators. In 1940, he bought a company called Isothermos, which had a factory just outside Genoa making heaters and chillers. When the factory was damaged in a bombing raid in 1942, he moved production to new premises at Bresso, a town now part of greater Milan.

Immediately after the end of the Second World War, Rivolta decided to devote his company to the production of Iso motorcycles and scooters, which buyers saw as an affordable and versatile means of getting around and offered significant commercial profits.

By 1953, he had changed the company’s name to Iso Autoveicoli and launched the Isetta, the success of which ultimately enabled Rivolta to pursue his ambition to produce high-performance sports cars. 

The Iso Grifo fulfilled Renzo Rivolta's dream
of moving into the performance car market

In collaboration with renowned designer Giorgetto Giugiaro, engineer Giotto Bizzarrini and coachbuilder Giovanni Bertone, Iso developed the Iso Grifo, a stunning grand tourer, which later led to the creation of the Bizzarini 5300 GT. 

Sadly, Renzo’s time to enjoy the trappings of his success was cut short when he died suddenly in 1966 at the age of 57.

He left a widow, Maria Aurelia Barberi (known as Marion), and two children, Attilia and Pier Attilio (known as Piero). Piero took over the running of the company, overseeing a period which saw the formation of the Iso-Rivolta-Marlboro Formula One team, managed by a young Frank Williams.

The Rivolta family sold the business in 1972, with car production ending two years later. Piero bought back the names Iso and Iso Rivolta, and after an initiative launched by the coachbuilder Zagato, a limited edition of a new sports car, the ISO Rivolta GTZ, was produced in 2019.

After success in a number of business projects, Piero and his family moved to Florida in 1980. In recent years, Pietro has devoted more of his time to writing novels and poetry, publishing eight books.

Renzo Rivolta's home in Bresso was the magnificent 
Villa Patellani, seen from Via Giulio Centurelli

Travel tip:

Bresso, situated a few kilometres north of the centre of Milan, is a charming suburban town with origins that can be traced back to the Roman era, when it was a small agricultural settlement known as Brissum. It remained a rural community until Milan experienced rapid industrialisation and urbanisation in the 20th century, when it began to attract commuters seeking a more affordable and less crowded lifestyle within easy reach of the city centre. Nonetheless, Bresso has a well preserved historic centre of narrow cobblestone streets, quaint squares, and traditional Lombard architecture.  Its oldest church, the Chiesa dei Santi Nazaro e Celso, dates back to the 15th century, while the modern Madonna della Misericordia, which was built in 1963, is shaped like Noah's ark. In 1939, Renzo Rivolta bought the Villa Patellani, a typical example of 18th-century Lombardy architecture, a reconstruction of a pre-existing 16th-century building. In 1942 it became part of the estate that incorporated the headquarters of his company, Isothermos, later Iso Autoveicoli. Part of the estate is now a community park, while one of the two surviving warehouse buildings now houses the municipality’s Post Office. 

The Basilica dei Santi Siro e Materno in Desio,
which was completed in 1744 and later enlarged

Travel tip:

Desio, where Rivolta was born, is a town of just under 21,000 people in the province of Monza and Brianza, which takes its name from the Latin ad decimum, meaning "at the 10th mile," referring to its location 10 Roman miles north of Milan. In 1277, it was the scene of a pivotal battle between the Visconti and della Torre families for the rule of Milan, won decisively by the Visconti, who would dominate the city until the mid-15th century. It is also the birthplace of Achille Ratti, who as Pope Pius XI was head of the Catholic Church between 1922 and 1939 and first sovereign of the independent Vatican City State upon its creation in 1929. His birthplace is now a museum dedicated to his life and legacy. The town is home to several notable churches, including the Basilica dei Santi Siro e Materno, which was consecrated upon its completion in 1744 and reconsecrated in 1895 following its enlargement and the addition of its dome.  

Also on this day: 

1533: The birth of philosopher Giacamo Zabarella

1568: The birth of poet and philosopher Tommaso Campanella

1901: The birth of politician Mario Scelba

1970: The birth of Paralympian Francesca Porcellato

Home

Giorgetto Giugiaro - automobile designer

The Volkswagen Golf Mk I was one of  Giugiaro's most
successful designs, the car selling 6.8 million units

Creative genius behind many of the world’s most popular cars

Giorgetto Giugiaro, who has been described as the most influential automotive designer of the 20th century, was born on this day in 1938 in Garessio, a village in Piedmont about 100km (62 miles) south of Turin.

In a career spanning more than half a century, Giugiaro and his companies have designed around 200 different cars, from the high-end luxury of Aston Martin, Ferrari, Maserati and DeLorean to the mass production models of Fiat, Volkswagen, Hyundai, Daewoo and SEAT.

The Volkswagen Golf and the Fiat Panda, two of the most successful popular cars of all time, were Giugiaro’s concepts.

In 1999, a jury of more than 120 journalists from around the world named Giugiaro “Designer of the Century.”

Giugiaro formed his own company.
Italdesign, just outside Turin in 1968

Giugiaro’s father and grandfather both painted in oils and Giugiaro became passionately interested in art. He enrolled at the University of Turin to study art and technical design.

He took an interest in styling automobiles only after one of his professors suggested that the motor industry would pay big money for someone of his artistic vision who could come up with elegant and practical designs.

Not surprisingly, after he had presented some sketches of cars at a student exhibition in Turin in 1955, it was Fiat - based in Turin - who became aware of his talent. The company’s technical director, Dante Giacosa, approached Giugiaro and three months later he joined Fiat’s Special Vehicle Design Study Department. He would stay with Fiat for four years, although he struggled to win approval for his designs.

From Fiat, he moved up the ladder of automotive design very quickly, lured away by Nuccio Bertone to join Gruppo Bertone, where Giugiaro delivered an amazing run of successful designs.

The stylish Alfa Romeo Brera is based on another of
Giugiaro's designs for Italdesign

Appointed chief designer at the age of just 22, his work included the Aston Martin DB4 GT, the Ferrari 250 GT Concept, Chevrolet Corvair Testudo Concept, Alfa Romeo Sprint, and the Fiat 850 Spider.

Giugiaro moved to Ghia in 1965, shortly before it was taken over by Alejandro de Tomaso, head of De Tomaso. He stayed there only two years, but it was long enough for him to make his mark with the De Tomaso Mangusta and the Maserati Ghibli, both unveiled in 1966.

Only a year later, Giugiaro moved on again, this time to form a partnership with Aldo Mantovani and a new company, based in Moncalieri, just outside Turin, which would be called Italdesign (later Italdesign Giugiaro.)

Since its founding, Giugiaro’s company has styled an estimated 200 vehicles for clients all over the world.

The Fiat Panda is another massive seller worldwide
that began life as a Giorgetto Giugiaro design

Among the best known have been the Alfa Romeo Alfasud, Lotus Esprit, Volkswagen Golf and Scirocco, Bugatti EB112, Saab 9000, Subaru SVX, and the DeLorean DMC 12. There are few major motor manufacturers around the world for whom Giugiaro or his company have not worked.

Probably the most successful of all has been the Volkswagen Golf Mark I, which was unveiled for the first time in 1974 and went on to sell 6.8 million units.

Giugiaro’s favoured styles in the early days of Italdesign tended to accentuate curves, as characterised by the DeTomaso Mangusta and the Maserati Ghibli. Later he became more concerned with straight lines, as characterised by the VW designs for the Passat and Scirocco as well as the Golf. Other designers often followed suit. A high-sided taxi he conceived for the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1978 did not enter production but became the influence for a generation of MPVs.

Like the Golf, Giugiaro’s Fiat Panda sold in huge numbers. Conceived to be minimalist, aesthetic and functional, the model continued in production for 32 years with barely an upgrade in that period.

His design talents have not stopped at cars. Giugiaro has also designed cameras for Nikon, firearms for Beretta, and motorcycles for Ducati, and Suzuki.

The castle at Moncalieri, once a royal residence for the
Savoys, now houses a Carabinieri training college

Travel tip:

Moncalieri, where Giugiaro established the Italdesign company with his partner Aldo Mantovani, has a population of almost 58,000 people. About 8km (5 miles) south of Turin within the city’s metropolitan area, it is notable for its castle, built in the 12th century and enlarged in the 15th century, which became a favourite residence of King Victor Emmanuel II and subsequently his daughter, Maria Clotilde. The castle now houses a prestigious training college for the Carabinieri, Italy’s quasi-military police force.

The village of Garessio sits in a valley in the Ligurian Alps,
close to the Langhe wine region

Travel tip:

Garessio, where Giugiaro was born, is located in the Ligurian Alps, on the border between Liguria and Piemonte provinces. In medieval times it was an important staging post for the salt trade and eventually salt brought over the Ligurian Alps from the Mediterrean Sea was re-packed and sold in Garessio for distribution to Northern Europe.  It is close to the Langhe wine region, which produces famous wines such as Barolo and Dolcetto, and is famous for the Aqua San Bernardo mineral water, which is renowned to have healing properties. At the turn of the century, Garessio built its fame as a spa town. It has a well preserved historical town centre.

More reading:

Why Giuseppe 'Nuccio' Bertone is known as the 'godfather of Italian car design'

Dante Giacosa, the engineer behind the iconic Fiat Cinquecento

How 'Pinin' Farina became a giant of the car industry

Also on this day:

1616: The death of architect Vincenzo Scamozzi 

1893: The death of opera composer Alfredo Catalani

1956: The birth of TV presenter Gerry Scotti


Home

Dante Giacosa - auto engineer

Dante Giacosa worked for Fiat automobiles
for almost half a century

Designer known as ‘the father of the Cinquecento'

The automobile engineer Dante Giacosa, who worked for the Italian car maker Fiat for almost half a century and designed the iconic Fiat 500 - the Cinquecento - in all its incarnations as well as numerous other classic models, died on this day in 1996 at the age of 91.

Giacosa was the lead design engineer for Fiat from 1946 to 1970. As such, he was head of all Fiat car projects during that time and the direction of the company’s output was effectively entirely down to him.

In addition to his success with the Cinquecento, Giacosa’s Fiat 128, launched in 1969, became the template adopted by virtually every other manufacturer in the world for front-wheel drive cars.

His Fiat 124, meanwhile, was exported to the Soviet Union and repackaged as the Zhiguli, known in the West as the Lada, which introduced Soviet society of the 1970s to the then-bourgeois concept of private car ownership.

Born in Rome, where his father was undertaking military service, Giacosa's family roots were in Neive in southern Piedmont. He studied engineering at the Polytechnic University of Turin.

Dante Giacosa, standing between the familiar shape of the
Nuovo Cinquecento and the original 'Topolino'

After completing his compulsory military service he joined Fiat in 1928, at first working on military vehicles and then in the aero engine division. The director of the aero engine division was Tranquillo Zerbi, designer of Grand Prix cars for Fiat, from whom Giacosa learned the basics of car design.

In 1929, Senator Giovanni Agnelli, co-founder of the Fiat company (and grandfather of Gianni), asked his engineers to design an economy car that would sell for 5,000 lire.

There was an emphasis on producing economical small cars in all the industrialised European countries. Giacosa's new 500cc vehicle, originally called the Zero A, appeared for the first time in 1934 and was immediately hailed as a triumph of engineering subtlety.

The vehicle was only just over three metres (10 feet) in length, yet Giacosa had managed to squeeze in a four-cylinder engine and space for two adults and two children. The radiator was squeezed in behind the engine for compactness, which allowed a sharply sloping nose.

Giacosa's Fiat 600 was a bigger version of the Fiat 500 but
with space for four adults and some luggage

The whole looked not unlike a clockwork mouse and enthusiastic buyers nicknamed it il Topolino after Mickey Mouse. Nonetheless, with independent suspension, the car out-handled many larger contemporaries.

During the Second World War, Giacosa returned to working on aero engines but also began planning a post-war range of economy cars.

However, in the financial chaos that followed, the Topolino was priced at 720,000 lire when Fiat resumed its production in 1945, a long way from Agnelli’s dream. The best that ordinary Italians could aspire to at the time was a bicycle or, later, perhaps a Vespa or Lambretta scooter.

But the needs of Italians changed with the baby boom of the early 1950s, by which time they had more disposable income. What they wanted was a family car, bigger and more comfortable than the Topolino, and Giacosa met that need by designing the Fiat 600.

Giacosa's Cisitalia D46 racing car, which he designed for
the entrepreneur and racing driver Piero Dusio

Although it cost 580,000 lire when it went on sale in 1955, it became more affordable through the new concept of credit payments. Though still compact, the rear-engined car had space for four passengers, while a stretch version went into regular use as a taxi.

However, as the narrow streets of Italian cities became busier, smaller cars such as the old Topolino that could whisk through traffic and park in a small spot, came back into vogue. Giacosa met that need by designing a new Cinquecento - the familiar Nuovo 500 - based on the rear-engined pattern of the 600, with seats for four adults, an open roof and a top speed of 100kph (60mph). It was an immediate hit, selling 3.7 million models before production stopped in 1973.

In addition to his mass production cars for Fiat, Giacosa also worked on behalf of the entrepreneur Piero Dusio and his Consorzio Industriale Sportivo Italia company to design a single-seater racing car cheap known as the Cisitalia D46. The car scored multiple successes in competition, particularly in the hands of drivers as talented as the brilliant Tazio Nuvolari, winner of 24 Grands Prix in the pre-Formula One era.

Fiat's extraordinary motor production plant at Lingotto, a
few kilometres from the centre of Turin

Travel tip:

The former Fiat plant in the Lingotto district of Turin was once the largest car factory in the world, built to a linear design by the Futurist architect Giacomo Matte Trucco and featuring a rooftop test track made famous in the Michael Caine movie, The Italian Job. Redesigned by the award-winning contemporary architect Renzo Piano, it now houses concert halls, a theatre, a convention centre, shopping arcades and a hotel, as well as the Automotive Engineering faculty of the Polytechnic University of Turin. The former Mirafiori plant, situated about 3km (2 miles) from the Lingotto facility, is now the Mirafiori Motor Village, where new models from the Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Lancia and Jeep ranges can be test driven on the plant's former test track.

The village of Neive in Piedmont is at the heart of an
important wine production area

Travel tip:

Neive, from which Giacosa’s family originated, is a large village in the Cuneo province of Piedmont region, about 12km (7 miles) north of the larger town of Alba and 70km (44 miles) southeast of Turin. It is best known as the centre of a wine producing region but more recently has enjoyed a boom in agritourism among visitors wishing to experience a rural Italian village. The centre of the village is the charming narrow Piazza Italia and the most important landmark the 13th century Torre Comunale dell’Orologio, the tallest building in the village. The village is beautifully presented and listed as one of the Borghi Più Belli d’Italia - the most beautiful small towns of Italy. The Baroque Chiesa Di San Pietro is one of the most important churches, with several beautiful art works by artists of the region. The notable wines produced in the area include Barbaresco, Barbera, Dolcetto d’Alba and the sweet dessert white wine Moscato d’Asti.

More reading:

How Fiat boss Gianni Agnelli became more powerful than politicians

Giovanni Agnelli and the 'horseless carriage' that launched Italy's biggest automobile company

How little 'Pinin' Farina became the biggest name in Italian car design

Also on this day:

1425: The birth of Bianca Maria Visconti - Duchess of Milan

1675: The birth of intellectual leader Pope Benedict XIV

1941: The birth of comic book artist Franco Bonvicini

Home

Piero Dusio - sportsman and entrepreneur

His Cisitalia company revolutionised automobile design

The Cisitalia 202 set new standards in sports car design
that changed the way automobiles looked

The footballer, racing driver and businessman Piero Dusio was born on this day in 1899 in Scurzolengo, a village in the hills above Asti, in Piedmont.

Dusio made his fortune in textiles but it is for his postwar venture into car production that he is most remembered. Dusio’s Cisitalia firm survived for less than 20 years before going bankrupt in the mid-1960s but in its short life produced a revolutionary car - the Cisitalia 202 - that was a gamechanger for the whole automobile industry.

Dusio played football for the Turin club Juventus, joining the club at 17 years old, and was there for seven years before a knee injury forced him to retire at the age of only 24, having made 15 appearances for the senior team, four of them in Serie A matches.

Piero Dusio was a former footballer
who made his fortune in textiles

He kept his connection with the club and from 1942 to 1948 was Juventus president. In the short term, though, he was forced to find a new career. He took a job with a Swiss-backed textile firm in Turin as a salesman. He took to the job immediately and made an instant impression on his new employers, selling more fabric in his first week than his predecessor had in a year.  Within a short time he had been placed in charge of sales for the whole of Italy.

In 1926, at the age of 27, Dusio opened his own textile company, producing Italy's first oil cloth.

By the 1930s he had a portfolio of business interests that included banking, tennis racket manufacture and racing bicycles. In the textile business he branched out into uniforms and casual clothing. He made his fortune after landing a contract with Mussolini to supply military uniforms for the Italian army. Demand for his waterproof canvas products also soared.

His personal wealth enabled him to indulge his passion for motor racing. He bought himself a Maserati and regularly raced. He finished sixth in the Italian Grand Prix of 1937 and won his class in the Mille Miglia in 1937 driving a 500cc SIATA Sport.

In 1938 he finished third overall in the Mille Miglia and won the Stelvio hillclimb. War then intervened but once it had finished Dusio was eager to resume his career in the cockpit.

The Cisitalia D46 was the first car to be produced
by Piero Dusio's new company

Yet Italy’s economy was on the floor at that stage with most of its industry destroyed. Dusio realised that it might be unrealistic to expect the expensive sport of motor racing to pick up exactly where it left off.

With that in mind, he created his new company - the Consorzio Industriale Sportivo Italia, Cisitalia for short - with a plan to produce a single-seater racing car cheap enough to tempt the amateur.  He commissioned the Fiat engineer, Dante Giacosa, famous for the Fiat 500 Topolino to design it and soon the Cisitalia D46 was born.

Dusio's dream of a one-model series featuring only the D46 came to nothing, but the car scored multiple successes, particularly in the hands of drivers as talented as the brilliant Tazio Nuvolari, winner of 24 Grands Prix in the pre-Formula One era.

He overstretched himself somewhat with his next project, paying a fortune to extract the legendary German engineer Ferdinando Porsche - a Nazi party member - from a French prison. Porsche’s innovative but complex mid-engined Cisitalia 360 was a triumph of engineering but ultimately proved too expensive for Dusio to support.

Battista 'Pinin' Farina is said to have made
his reputation with his work on the 202

Yet Dusio was not done.  In 1945, he took on another Fiat man, their young head of aviation, Giovanni Savonuzzi, with the idea of building a two-seater commercial coupé based on the D46.  Their project was taken up by Battista ‘Pinin’ Farina, who came up with the Cisitalia 202 Coupé.

The car was not a commercial success. It was priced higher than rival cars from Jaguar and Porsche that offered better performance. In the end, fewer than 200 were built.

Yet its design - the one that made Farina’s reputation, although it closely followed Savonuzzi’s preliminary sketches - is credited with changing the way cars look, setting an entirely new standard - a template for the way sports cars look even today.

Whereas road cars traditionally had been a collection of elements - cabin, hood, grill, fenders, headlights etc - with no real thought for aerodynamics, at least until the late 1930s, the Cisitalia 202 was a single unit. The headlights and the grill were perfectly aligned elements of the hood, the wheels were entirely inside the body, removing the need for separate fenders, and the cabin tapered in a smooth line to the rear.

Savonuzzi had applied to his sketches all he had learned about airflow in his aviation work and Farina had put his ideas into practice. The result was a beautiful design that was likened to a sculpture.  When the Museum of Modern Art in New York became the first museum to exhibit automobiles as examples of functional design, the 202 was the first vehicle to enter their collection.

For all that, Dusio could not sell enough cars to rescue his ailing company and the only way he could continue his career was to accept an offer of support from the government of Argentina to set up in car production in Buenos Aires, where he would remain until his death in 1975 at the age of 76.

Cisitalia continued to be run by his son, Carlo Dusio, but was made bankrupt in 1965.

The cathedral in Asti dates back to the 11th century

Travel tip:

The village of Scurzolengo is just over 15km (9 miles) northeast of Asti, a city of just over 75,000 inhabitants about 55 km (34 miles) east of Turin. The city enjoyed many years of prosperity in the 13th century when it occupied a strategic position on trade routes between Turin, Milan, and Genoa. The area between the centre and the cathedral is rich in medieval palaces and merchants’ houses, the owners of which would often compete with their neighbours to build the tallest towers. Asti was once known as the City of 100 Towers, although in fact there were 120, of which a number remain, including the Torre Comentina, the octagonal Torre de Regibus and Torre Troyana.

The strikingly modern Museo Nazionale dell' Automobile
is a major tourist attraction in Turin

Travel tip:

With a long history in motor vehicle design and manufacturing - Fiat, Lancia, Iveco, Pininfarina, Bertone, Giugiaro, Ghia and Cisitalia were all founded in the city - it is hardly surprising that Turin is home to Italy’s most important automobile museum, the Museo Nazionale dell’Automobile (also known as MAUTO).  Opened in 1960 and dedicated to Giovanni Agnelli, founder of FIAT, the museum’s building and permanent exhibition were completely renovated in 2011. The MAUTO, in  Corso Unità d'Italia, is today one of Turin’s most popular tourist attractions.

More reading:

Was Tazio Nuvolari the greatest driver of them all?

The 'smallest brother' who became a giant of the car industry

The brilliance of engineer Vittorio Jano

Also on this day:

54AD: The suspicious death of the emperor Claudius

1815: The execution of Napoleon's military strategist Joachim Murat


Home

Ettore Bugatti - car designer

Name that became a trademark for luxury and high performance

Ettore Bugatti launched the company in 1909 after
attending the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan

The car designer and manufacturer Ettore Bugatti was born in Milan on this day in 1881.

The company Bugatti launched in 1909 became associated with luxury and exclusivity while also enjoying considerable success in motor racing.  When the glamorous Principality of Monaco launched its famous Grand Prix in 1929, the inaugural race was won by a Bugatti.

Although Bugatti cars were manufactured for the most part in a factory in Alsace, on the border of France and Germany, their stylish designs reflected the company’s Italian heritage and Bugatti cars are seen as part of Italy’s traditional success in producing desirable high-performance cars.

The story of Bugatti as a purely family business ended in 1956, and the company closed altogether in 1963.  The name did not die, however, and Bugatti cars are currently produced by Volkswagen.

Ettore came from an artistic family in Milan. His father, Carlo Bugatti, was a successful designer of Italian Art Nouveau furniture and jewelry, while his paternal grandfather, Giovanni Luigi Bugatti, had been an architect and sculptor.  His younger brother, Rembrandt Bugatti, became well known for his animal sculpture.

Ettore - full name Ettore Arco Isidoro Bugatti - displayed both artistic talent and an interest in motor vehicles at a young age. He attended the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera in his home city before becoming apprenticed to the bicycle manufacturer Prinetti and Stucchi, where at the age of 17 he successfully attached an engine to a tricycle.

A Type 35 Bugatti, the car that brought the company
many race successes, including its first Grand Prix

With financial support from his father, he began to produce prototype cars, the second of which won a prize at the Milan Trade Fair in 1901. Bugatti's design also caught the eye of the wealthy Baron de Dietrich, who offered him an opportunity to design cars at his factory in Niederbronn, a town then in Germany but now in the Alsace region of northeastern France.

Bugatti produced his first racing car in 1903, but fell out with De Dietrich over his attention to racing cars over production models and moved to work for the French manufacturer Emil Mathis in Strasbourg, although again it was a short-lived relationship. By 1907 he was working for the Deutz engine company in Cologne.

He went alone for the first time in 1909, buying a disused dyeworks in Molsheim, abou 25km (16 miles) west of Strasbourg, where with the financial backing of the Spanish racing driver Pierre De Vizcaya and a bank loan, he began work to produce 10 cars and five aeroplane engines.

Bugatti produced his first so-called ‘pur sang’ (thoroughbred) Bugattis - a term he invented himself - with the Type 10/13 in 1910, a car in which his factory driver, Ernest Friederich, came second in the French Grand Prix at the first attempt in 1911.

Ettore Bugatti (right) and his son Jean discuss race tactics

The company’s reputation for producing some of the fastest, most luxurious, and technologically advanced road cars of their day soon spread. Among the clients who purchased a Bugatti car was the celebrated French fighter pilot Roland Garros.

Bugatti branched more into aircraft engines during the First World War but returned to cars once peace resumed and between the wars Bugatti cars enjoyed notable success on the track.

The 1924 Type 35 brought the marque its first Grand Prix victory in Lyon, while Bugattis swept to victory in the Targa Florio, the road race in Sicily, for five years in a row from 1925 to 1929.

Between 1921 and 1939 Bugattis won more than 30 major races, including the French Grand Prix six times and the Monaco Grand Prix four times, culminating in the 24 Hours of Le Mans twice, in 1937 and 1939, with the Type 57, driven by Jean-Pierre Wimille and Pierre Veyron, whose name has since been immortalised in the most famous of modern Bugattis.

The Bugatti Veyron is regarded by experts as one of
the best cars ever produced for looks and performance

On the production side, the company enjoyed huge success through the 1920s but suffered in the financial crash of the 1930s, which was a disaster for the first of the Bugatti Royales, the luxury 12.7 litre open-top limousine, of which only three were sold after the market disappeared.

Tragedy struck when Ettore Bugatti's son, Jean Bugatti, was killed in 1939 at the age of 30 while testing a Type 57 near the Molsheim factory. After that, the company's fortunes began to decline.  A strike in 1936 hit the company hard and the Second World War saw the factory in Molsheim transferred to a German owner by compulsory purchase.

The Molsheim plant was given back to Bugatti after the war but lack of funds meant the company could never return to its pre-war prosperity. Ettore, by then living in Paris, suffered pneumonia followed by a stroke and died in 1947 at the age of 65.

Married twice, he fathered two daughters and two sons, the youngest of whom, Roland Bugatti, took over the running of the company in 1951 but was unable to save it, production coming to an end in 1956, the closure of the company following in 1963.

The company name was revived 24 years later, however, when the Italian entrepreneur Romano Artioli bought the rights to the Bugatti trademark and began manufacturing cars at Campogalliano, near Modena.

It was subsequently acquired by Volkswagen in 1998, with the help of whose expertise the Bugatti name has again come to symbolise luxury and high performance. The Bugatti Veyron, of which production began in 2005 at a refurbished Molsheim plant, has propelled it back to the top of the tree in the limited production exclusive sports car market, earning the title ‘greatest car of the past 20 years’ in a poll conducted by the UK magazine Top Gear that attracted more than 100,000 entries.

The Palazzo Brera is home to the Accademia di Belle Arti

Travel tip:

The Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, sometimes shortened to Accademia di Brera, is a state-run tertiary public academy of fine arts in Via Brera in Milan, in a building it shares with the Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan's main public museum for art. The academy was founded in 1776 by Maria Theresa of Austria and shared its premises with other cultural and scientific institutions, including an astronomical observatory, botanical garden, school of philosophy and law, laboratories for physics and chemistry, and a library. The main building, the Palazzo Brera, was built in about 1615 to designs by Francesco Maria Richini.

The first Targa Florio in 1906 was won by Alessandro
Cagno, driving an Turin-based Itala car

Travel tip:

The Targa Florio was an open road endurance car race held in the mountains of Sicily near the island's capital of Palermo between 1906 and 1977, when it was discontinued due to safety concerns. Conceived by the wealthy pioneer race driver Vincenzo Florio, it was for a time the oldest surviving sports car racing event in the world. While early races were eventually extended to a whole tour of the island, covering a distance of 975km (606 miles), it was in time shortened to a circuit of just 72km (45 miles). The race started and finished at the village of Cerda, 45km (28 miles) southeast of Palermo.

More reading:

Enzo Ferrari and the automobile world's most famous name

The insult that fired the Lamborghini-Ferrari rivalry

How Battista 'Pinin' Farina changed the way cars looked

Also on this day:

1616: Europe's first free public school opens in Frascati, near Rome

1904: The birth of Umberto di Savoia, the last king of Italy


Home

Pietro Frua - car designer

Built business from a bombed-out factory

Pietro Frua became one of Italy's leading
car designers in the 1960s

The car designer and coachbuilder Pietro Frua, who built some of Italy’s most beautiful cars without achieving the fame of the likes of Giovanni Bertone or Battista “Pinin” Farina, was born on this day in 1913 in Turin.

He is particularly remembered for his work with Maserati, for whom he designed the A6G and the Mistral among other models.

The son of a Fiat employee, Carlo Frua, Pietro was an apprentice draftsman with Fiat and from the age of 17 worked alongside Battista Farina for his brother, Giovanni Farina, who had a coachbuilding business in Turin. He became director of styling for Stabilimenti Farina at the age of just 22.

After being obliged to diversify during the war, when he designed electric ovens and children’s model cars among other things, Frua bought a bombed-out factory building in 1944, restored it to serviceable order and hired 15 workers to help him launch his own business.

The first car he designed in his own studio was the soft-top Fiat 1100C sports car in 1946.  Subsequent work for Peugeot and Renault came his way and in 1955 he was approached by Maserati for the first time, to work on the design of the two-litre A6G coupe.

Pietro Frua's Mistral, the sports car that helped propel
Maserati into the forefront of the luxury market

In 1957, he sold his company to Carrozzeria Ghia, another Turin coachbuilder, whose name would become synonymous with sporty excellence across the motor industry. The Ghia director Luigi Segre made Frua head of design. His big success there was the Renault Floride, of which more than 117,000 were sold.

They fell out, however, when Segre tried to take credit for the model’s success, leading Frua to open his own studio again.  An influence on Pelle Petterson’s design for the iconic Volvo P1800, he also designed several cars for Ghia-Aigle, the former Swiss subsidiary of Ghia, and for Italsuisse.

By the 1960s, Frua was one of Italy’s leading car designers in Italy, with a reputation for elegant, tasteful lines, a perfectionist who would often deliver his cars to motor shows around Europe himself, having treated the journey as a test drive.

In 1963, Frua designed a range of cars for Glas, Germany’s smallest car-maker, which included the Glas GT Coupé and Cabriolet as well as the V8-engined 2600, which was nicknames the "Glaserati" for its likeness with Frua's Maserati-designs.

The car became the BMW GT, after BMW had rescued Glas from financial difficulties with a 1966 buy-out.

Frua's Maserati A6G had a design that exuded power

Also in 1963, Frua returned to Maserati to build the four-door Quattroporte which, following on from the 3500GT and the 5000GT, saw him firmly back in the Maserati stable.

His Mistral, developed in 1965, propelled Maserati into the forefront of the luxury sports car market, the car finding a substantial following for its powerful, understated image.

In 1965, he began a successful association with the British-based AC car company, for whom his AC Frua Spyder drew on the Mistral’s shape.

In the 1970s Frua began to scale back his work, concentrating on small projects and one-offs, styling exclusive versions of a Chevrolet Camaro, a BMW 2000 TI, an Opel Diplomat, a BMW 2800, a Porsche 914/6 and a five-litre Maserati.

Hew worked with French racing driver Guy Ligier to create the Ligier JSI. Moving his workshop to Moncalieri, a town just south of Turin, he accepted commissions from wealthy individuals such as the Shah of Persia and the Aga Khan.

One of the last cars to enter series production based on Frua’s designs was the two-door GT Maserati Kyalami, which made its debut at the 1976 Geneva Motor Show.

In 1982, Frua underwent treatment for cancer but died in 1983, a short time after his 70th birthday.

Fiat's extraordinary factory in the Lingotto district of Turin
was once the largest car manufacturing plant in the world

Travel tip:

Frua’s apprenticeship for Fiat would have seen him become familiar with Fiat’s enormous, iconic factory in the Lingotto district of Turin, famous for a production line that progressed upwards through its five floors, with completed cars emerging on to a then-unique steeply banked test track at rooftop level. Opened in 1923, it was the largest car factory in the world, built to a starkly linear design by the Futurist architect Giacomo Matte Trucco. The factory was closed in 1982 but the building was preserved out of respect for the huge part it played in Italy’s industrial heritage. Redesigned by the award-winning contemporary architect Renzo Piano, it now houses concert halls, a theatre, a convention centre, shopping arcades and a hotel, as well as the Automotive Engineering faculty of the Polytechnic University of Turin.  The rooftop track, which featured in the Michael Caine movie, The Italian Job, has been preserved and can still be visited today.

The handsome castle at Moncalieri now houses
a training college for the Carabinieri

Travel tip:

Moncalieri, where Frua moved his studio in the 1970s, has a population of almost 58,000 people. About 8km (5 miles) south of Turin within the city’s metropolitan area, it is notable for its castle, built in the 12th century and enlarged in the 15th century, which became a favourite residence of King Victor Emmanuel II and subsequently his daughter, Maria Clotilde. The castle now houses a prestigious training college for the Carabinieri, Italy’s quasi-military police force.



More reading:

How little Battista Farina became a giant of car design

The insult that inspired Ferruccio Lamborghini

Dante Giacosa, father of the Cinquecento

Also on this day:

1660: The birth of composer Alessandro Scarlatti

1930: The birth of radical politician and campaigner Marco Pannella


Home

Giuseppe ‘Nuccio’ Bertone – car designer

The man behind the classic Alfa Romeo Giulietta Sprint

Nuccio Bertone (right), pictured with his
 father, Giovanni

Automobile designer Giuseppe Bertone, who built car bodies for Alfa Romeo, Fiat, Lamborghini, Ferrari and many other important names in the car industry, was born on this day in 1914 in Turin.

Nicknamed ‘Nuccio’ Bertone, he was regarded as the godfather of Italian car design. His career in the automobile industry spanned six decades.

His father Giovanni was a skilled metalworker who made body parts for cars in a workshop he founded two years before Giuseppe was born.

Giovanni had been born in 1884 into a poor farming family near the town of Mondovi, in southern Piedmont. He had moved to Turin in 1907 and became gripped by the automobile fever that swept the city.

It was under the direction of his son that the company – Carrozzeria Bertone – was transformed after the Second World War into an industrial enterprise, specialising at first in design but later in the manufacture of car bodies on a large scale.

An accountant by qualification, Nuccio joined his father's firm in 1933, although his passion at first was racing cars as a driver. He raced Fiats, OSCAs, Maseratis, and Ferraris.

Through the 1930s, much of the work done by Carrozzeria Bertone was still craft-based and the car bodies finished by hand, but Nuccio understood the need to turn to mass production if the company was to enjoy real success.

Bertone's Alfa Romeo Giulietta Sprint 

After he took control in the 1950s, his first designs were for the British company M.G., but his big break came in 1954, when he landed a contract to design and build 500 Alfa Romeo Giulietta Sprints. They were to be given away in a state raffle but generated such interest that, in the end, Bertone built more than 40,000, transforming the company from a small craft organisation into an industrial one.

He went on to produce numerous models for Fiat and Alfa Romeo and for Lamborghini, which were noted for their beautiful design and strong performance.

Bertone’s revolutionary Lamborghini Miura, unveiled at the 1966 Geneva Auto Show, had a centrally placed engine and a shark-like nose that became a common basic feature in many later designs. The Lamborghini Espada and the Countach, and the Fiat X 1/9, were characterised by sleek lines and grills that create an aura of menace. Bertone’s Ferrari Dino 308 GT4 is another sought out by collectors.

In 1971, Bertone received the Italian equivalent of a knighthood for his services to industry. The 1970s and '80s saw the company’s fortunes dip, but it bounced back by creating convertibles from family cars such as the Vauxhall and Opel Astras and Fiat Punto.

Bertone's revolutionary Lamborghini Miura

When Volvo launched a special series of limited-production two-door sports cars in the United States in 1991, they not only featured bodies designed and built by Bertone, they also bore his signature on a plaque on the dashboard.

Bertone, an avid sailor and skier, had a penchant for sharp tailoring and sunglasses. He was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame in 2006, nine years after his death in Turin at the age of 82.

In the years after his death, Bertone’s company ran into financial difficulties, eventually declaring bankruptcy in 2014. The name lives on after the licence was bought by a Milan company, Bertone Design, that designs trains, including the high-speed Frecciarossa 1000.

The Civic Tower in the centre of Grugliasco

Travel tip:

Grugliasco, where the Bertone Group was based before its collapse, is a town of some 38,000 residents in the metropolitan area of Turin about 9km (6 miles) west of the centre. The history of the town goes back to the 11^th century at least. The centre is dominated by the Civic Tower, originally built to aid the defence of the town, in time it became the bell tower for the adjoining church of San Cassiano.  The town’s patron saint is San Rocco, credited with delivering the population from an outbreak of plague in 1599. In more recent times, the town was victim to a massacre carried out by German soldiers, who killed up to 66 partisans and citizens in April 1945 in retaliation for a partisan attack on a Fascist division the previous day.

Travel tip:

Examples of Bertone’s designs can be viewed in the Centro Stile Bertone museum in Via Roma, Caprie, a small town about 35km (22 miles) west of Turin along Val di Susa, which was established by Nuccio’s widow, Lilli, who rescued most of the Bertone Collection when the Grugliasco plant was sold. It is now protected by the Ministry of Heritage and Culture as part of Italy’s artistic heritage. Viewing is by appointment (Tel: +39 011 9638 322).

Home