Turin Auto Show '10–11.1968

Dante Giacosa:

In 1964, when the Autobianchi plant at Desio was starting production of the Primula, I had an idea for turning out a sports model of this auto: a two-seater coupé with the same transverse engine but placed behind the seats and driving the rear wheels. In fact a transverse engine for a front-wheel drive vehicle can easily be moved back and adapted to rear-drive. The distribution of weight that results provides optimum conditions for road holding between tyres and the road surface.

I thought it would be a good idea to utilize the mechanicals of the front-wheel drive vehicle with various modifications, rendered necessary by the layout of the new coachwork, the different distribution of the weight on the four wheels and its boosted performance. Since the components were to a large extent already being mass-produced, the new chassis would cost relatively little to build.

The designs with the designation “G. 31” were completed in 1966. The chassis was built by Fiat in 1967. The general manager, at that time Gioia, suggested that I should ask OSI to look after the coachwork. OSI (Officina stampaggi industriali) was a company set up in 1960 by Arrigo Olivetti (by training a lawyer) and the then President of the Ghia outfit, Luigi Segre. When Segre died Arrigo Olivetti became the owner of OSI and he entrusted the running of it to Bianco. Bianco had a restless and enterprising spirit. He set up a technical design office which was staffed by men of the calibre of Sergio Sartorelli and Werner Höbl. The design and coachwork were done by Sartorelli. I made a substantial contribution to it myself even though I could only make brief and infrequent visits to the workshop. But when the auto was complete it was clear that the shape of the bodywork, very original for

its period, needed to be slightly revised. Despite this it was presented to Fiat so that testing could begin.

In the meantime, the 124 AC 1.600cc engine with twin overhead cams had gone into production so I had the chassis redesigned to accommodate it, much more powerful than the Primula’s. So now we were faced with the likelihood of having to build a second prototype and

design new coachwork embodying all the improvements suggested by experience. Together with Paolo Boano we decided to entrust the design of the coachwork to Pio Manzù. Pio had been on the strength of the Styling Centre since 1968. Before that he had worked together with Fiat’s Press

and Publicity Department and occasionally with me. From time to time he would send along some of his marvellously lucid designs, the distillation of deep reflection and study, embodying his vision of the automobile, especially the popular motor car, the economy model accessible to the widest possible public.

The comments accompanying them would be no more than a few essential words, beautifully lettered on almost blank sheets. The designs spoke for themselves. In fact only a drawing can give an exact idea of an automobile. The mind generally thinks and reasons in words but it is impossible to visualize a machine verbally.

So I had long been acquainted with Pio Manzù’s deftness of hand and brilliant intelligence. He had been introduced to me on 20 September 1960 by Carlo Felice Bona who, as the reader will recollect, was then the director of the Central Research and Control Workshops. Bona was a keen historian and art-lover. The name Manzù made him tremble with excitement. All worked up he brought the young man into my office and entrusted him to my care, propelling him towards me with a gentle dab of his hand as if he were patting some precious object, his tall body stooping over Pio Manzù’s slight figure.

Manzù was twenty years old. His look was thoughtful and intense; a strong nose dominated his small mouth. His long expressive face expressed his sensitive sincerity and courage and strength of will. He was studying in Germany at a school in Ulm. Industrial design in its true sense, applied to the automobile, was his dominant interest. He was passionately interested in autos. I listened to his fluent conversation which revealed his instinctive artistic bent and depth of sensibility. Naturally I thought that one day he might join Fiat and work at the Styling Centre.

Some years passed before he turned up again. He came to tell me that together with a colleague he had won a competition for coachwork design reserved for students of industrial design. The prize was construction of the model by the Pininfarina coachworks.

This was the start of the collaboration that enabled us to get to know each other and gradually introduced Pio into the restricted artistic milieu at Fiat.

His marked personality and his ideas, not always unreservedly expressed, made me fear that it was not going to be easy for him to adapt to the working set-up at the Styling Centre, conditioned as it was by the innumerable requirements of industrial production. I was worried that his emotional sensitivity might be sorely tried by the inevitable toughness of his reception in a closed and select circle, so jealous of its own methods and traditions. This made me hesitate for some time, uncertain how to insert Pio into the staff under my charge. But after patiently working to prepare his future colleagues and Pio himself I decided to take him on at the Styling Centre. Even Giovanni Agnelli took an interest in this addition to the staff.

Manzù was given a large studio with draughtsmen and modellers together with the material to produce models of plaster of Paris, plasticine and clay. We got into the habit of calling him Pio. We knew that his father, the famous sculptor, had no wish for his son – of whom he was extremely fond – to be called by his own nom d’art, Manzù instead of Manzoni.

So it was Pio who had the job of modelling the new coachwork of the “G. 31” chassis in its most recent version, powered by the 124 AC engine and perfected in numerous points of detail. For his part he showed the refinement of his sense of design and his skilful touch in shaping the plaster model. The result, which followed the general lines of the previous coachwork constructed by OSI, was a magnificent work of sculpture. We took a replica of it in plastic reinforced with strands of glass fibre and had it displayed at the Turin Motor Show on the Autobianchi stand. But it had already been decided to drop the “G. 31” derived from the Primula from the production programme and to bring out sports models similarly derived from the 128.

The extremely attractive model displayed at the Turin Motor Show drew the attention of automakers, awaking their interest by its layout, with a transverse engine and rear-wheel drive. A few years later, in fact, we were to see the most up-to-date sports cars being designed along the same lines as the “G. 31” presented by Autobianchi.

The Fiat X1/9 which came out at the start of 1974 can be considered the translation into concrete terms of the concept that had led me in 1964 to design the “G. 31”