Style a reason for living for Lapo Elkann. In the automotive field, after contributing to the relaunch of the 500 (2007), he applied his vision to the customizations of Garage Italia, ranging from Alfa Romeo to BMW, up – most recently – to electric. Lapo’s most recent initiative is the Automotive Design Club, a format of dialogue and comparison between car designers.
The first meeting – digital of course – which took place on Clubhouse, the social media platform of the moment, and was a sensational appointment: the Ferrari style directors, Flavio Manzoni, and Lamborghini, Mitja Borkert, discussed with Lapo. With them also Roberto Giolito, designer (his 1998 Multipla, the 2007 500, the year in which he was appointed style manager of the Fiat and Abarth brands) and today director of FCA Heritage. Finally Giovanni Perosino, commercial director of Lamborghini. To moderate the debate, Professor Paolo Tumminelli, an expert in automotive style and writer of the trilogy Car Design.
The roots and their influences in the creative process; the challenges of the future: there was a full discussion. Everything starts from the response to desire. According to Perosino: The goal was always to create desirable cars, such as the 500: at that moment, Fiat returned to creating cars that people could want. It is even more true for designer cars. I often tell customers: you don’t need a Lamborghini, you deserve a Lamborghini. Hence the need to find the right key, also and above all using design.
I believe that an important car must be functional, form, but also an art object with the aspiration to have soul and poetry. I believe that car design should not be a self-referential world, but should seek external stimuli. And the many Ferrari models provide us with a vocabulary of solutions, a DNA from which to start, added Flavio Manzoni.
Mitja Borkert recalled the past: Ferruccio Lamborghini builds a car for himself, as he dreamed of it, after so many years the brand now has its own well-defined DNA, you can recognize a Lamborghini by its silhouette alone. It is valid for the past and it must be for the future, but without repeating itself.
nice to be able to mix something new and of known, Giolito comments. It is no coincidence that many sports jewels were born in Italy, in the past in the factories of Pininfarina and Bertone, now from this generation that supports their legacy. Ferrari has been taking care of its own creations at home since 2010, while Lamborghini is the leading edge of the Volkswagen group. In fact, the Italian dream in this field is still very much alive abroad, continues Giolito. With the approval of the foreigner Borkert, who moved to Emilia precisely to manage the style center of Sant’Agata: The Italian lifestyle is an inspiration for me, the feeling of “living the dream”, of doing something important to bring Lamborghini’s vision of the future.
The future? On the one hand, there is the request of total customization, with wealthy customers who want a practically unique supercar, so much, explains Manzoni, that in some cases they become part of the initial design process. But if the purchase of “tailor made” supercars is limited to a quarrel, these technological jewels are well present among the wishes of the general public. The digital world is becoming an important channel for fueling the imagination, as cinema or major car fairs were in the past, Manzoni underlines.
Augmented reality and video games they are a way to reach younger and larger audiences. In 2019 – says Borkert – our style center, together with the engineers and the marketing department, created a car that will never see the light: the Lambo V12 Vision Gran Turismo, made especially for Gran Turismo Sport. It was fun and very interesting.
March 29, 2021 (change March 29, 2021 | 13:19)
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