What has happened to the Italian design houses? Do you remember the big names of Ghia, Pininfarina, Bertone, Zagato, Vignale, and ItalDesign? Some of us do, but they really have disappeared into the past. Why? There are several reasons mostly because of the fact that Italian cars are fading from world consciousness. There are a lot of factors that have made the Italians irrelevant to the world's manufacturers, some of which they have caused themselves.
Ghia is really the exception to this list of design houses. They are most famous in the United States for Volkswagen's Karmann Ghia of the fifties, thought probably few people actually know what the "Ghia" means in that model's name. The company started out after World War II as a premier house with the others, but then were bought by Ford in the early seventies. Ford didn't encourage Ghia to continue being an independent designer, instead let it stagnate into an outsider that did little to help Ford's design effort. It seemed like management only wanted the name "Ghia" to add on to trim packages for standard Ford models. Ghia was formally closed a couple of years ago.
The real downfall of the Italian design houses started when the Turin Auto Show was cancelled in the eighties. It used to be the big show for the Italian design houses to show their best efforts. It has been reinstated, but is no longer considered one of the "must-see" international shows for the press. Without this show, the design houses really have no place to establish their name with the public, and therefore establish credibility with the manufacturers.
Still, the Italians (read Fiat/Alfa Romeo) and the French still use the Italian houses to design many of their models. Unfortunately Fiat is in even worse shape financially than General Motors. Only the $2 billion that GM sent to Fiat to settle the purchase option has kept Fiat in business temporarily. That has meant that Fiat has little money to spend on new designs. The French only seem to use the Italians because they have done it for years.
What about other manufacturers? As I have said before, the major designs for almost all the world's car designers come from their studios in Southern California. Couple this with the fact that there are car design schools in the world, led by our local Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, that produce a surplus of new car designers. That surplus has led to manufacturers having their own design studios, both here and at their home factory locations. Why do they need the Italians anymore? Many of the manufacturers now have their own designer personality leading their design houses.
Ford has J Mays. BMW has Chris Bangle. These two come to mind immediately.
Even Ferrari who has used Pininfarina as their primary design house hired Frank Stephenson as their head personality for design. He did both Ferrari and Maserati for several years until being drafted to head all of Fiat. The Pininfarina influence at Ferrari/Maserati is very strong, but it also is clear that Stephenson has been very involved in the current Ferrari/Maserati designs. Remember that Stephenson was the designer of the new MINI.
What about the other Italian, Lamborghini? They have used several Italian houses in the past, but with Audi ownership, now have their own designer, Luc Donckerwolke. His name doesn't sound very Italian, does it? Well, he isn't Italian and Audi feels that a non-Italian can design an Italian Lamborghini to look like a proper Lamborghini. I'd say that his creation, the Gallardo, certainly is a proper looking Lamborghini.
What about Bertone? This was one of the premier houses in Italy. My 1971 Lamborghini Espada has a Bertone emblem on its front fender. It also appears on the Countach. They did many really significant design studies in the late sixties and early seventies including the Carabo, Marzal, Rainbow, and Stratos to name just a few from my memory. Yes, they are still doing studies like this, but do you remember this year's Villa or last year's Jet? I don't. Their web site lists many production cars from the sixties, seventies, eighties and nineties, but only one after the turn of the century, the 2000 Opel Astra Cabrio -- and note that it isn't even a new model, just a convertible conversion of an existing model.
ItalDesign is almost an exception. They started much later than the other design houses. Giorgetto Giugiaro honed his talents at other design houses before striking out on his own to form ItalDesign in 1968. Today his son, Frabrizio, heads the company with dad still active. Many memorable design studies have come from this house on all different manufacturer's platforms. They've done several BMWs and a Corvette, for example. Today they are active with the Chinese and Koreans, probably recognizing the future better than the other Italians.
I really miss the interesting contributions of the Italian design houses. They mostly use the Geneva show for their new creations these days, but that makes them use a small exhibition hall that is also crowded by major manufacturers' displays. It really is too bad that there isn't a big Turin show anymore that was mostly dedicated to the Italians creations.
