A private tour of Pininfarina's secret stash

Pininfarina is most famous for its association with Ferrari, but its back catalogue is far more diverse than that. From coach-built Cadillacs in the 1930s, to radical concept cars of its own, the Italian design consultancy has shaped more beautiful cars that any of its rivals – and hasn’t lost its touch as the decades have ticked by.

Somehow, somebody has boiled down a portfolio of over 800 cars to just 11 in the company’s on-site museum at its Turin HQ. The cynical among you will claim that’s all it had space for. And you’d be right. But this handful of cars tells a mesmerising story. As luck would have it, we had Fabio Filippini, Pininfarina’s Chief Creative Officer, on hand to tell that story. 

“Before the war Pininfarina was doing very exclusive coach bodies on demand, so this, the Cisetalia, is a highly symbolic car for Pininfarina. Not just for Pininfarina actually, but for car design as a whole. It is the first ever car introduced into the permanent collection of a modern art museum, the MOMA in New York from 1961, which makes it the first car to be considered as real art. 

“In a certain way it deserves it because it’s so pure, so simple, so clean. And it’s all about proportion, so it represents exactly the spirit of Pininfarina. It’s still a template for all front-engined sports cars, because the cabin is backwards, it is very low, the bonnet is lower than the wheelarches. Until then it was the other way around. It’s so pure; to help the flow of the air, even the door handles were completely flush, you push the button and it comes out."

“This is important because it was the first official car produced by Pininfarina for the United States. We did other things already, like in the 1930s with Cadillac, but this one was the first official contract production with Nash Healy, an American company. It was built here, then sent to America to assemble with the chassis and powertrain.” 

“This is a symbol of the Italian economic boom in the late Fifties, early Sixties. But it’s a milestone for the company because until that point it was a coachbuilder, from then it became an industrial manufacturer. We built 27,000 of them in total.”

“The Florida is a complete one-off and was the personal car of Battista Pininfarina, but it also anticipated the production car that was the Lancia Flaminia. He used it every day, it was his own personal car, so full of very stylish things. It was very classic but also very innovative. The door opening, it was pillarless, and the rear wipers were inside the screen because of the condensation.” 

“The Sintesi was a prototype for aerodynamics. But not many people know how this influential this was for the Ferrari FF. At that time the FF project was taking a different orientation that Ferrari had already decided. Then this car came out at the 2008 Geneva Motor Show and Luca di Montezemolo and Jean Todt saw it and said, ‘we should take the idea back to Modena, we should try and put it on the FF.’ And that’s the way the FF came out with this shooting Brake shape. It is important to see that even by Pininfarina doing a show car, how much it has influenced a real product.”

“This is the best example of a Pininfarina show car influencing a real product. It’s not necessarily one of the nicest looking cars, because it has a big, erm, rear. In fact there is a huge amount of storage in the rear. But take a look at this [points to the silver slatted section running over the roof] and it looks completely blind, but if you look from the inside you can see through it and the visibility is not bad in reality. In certain ways this car was totally influential to makimg the BB [next slide]."

“This is one of the most famous Ferraris and Pininfarina designs, and was clearly influenced by doing the P6 three years earlier. The Dino was before this, it was the first mid-engined production car for Ferrari. The 1965 Berlinetta Speciale was the first mid-engined competition car, the prototype for the Dino and the first car that Sergio took over complete responsibility for from his father for Ferrari.” 

“Well we know all about this one don’t we. The only thing I need to say is that this is a full size validation model, not the real car. It’s to show what we are capable of in terms of prototyping here at Pininfarina.”

“The humble Fiat 124 was, in its last two years, produced under the Pininfarina logo, because Fiat decided to pull out of the US. But in America there was still customers, the dealer told us to keep on selling, so we went on for two years of production with our own brand. The only Pininfarina branded car… so far.” 

“Some of our nicest recent work, it was done before I arrived. It’s a shame this wasn’t the new Alfa Spider, but it was a marketing decision. If they ask us, we can help them, if they don’t ask then they are free to look. This was done under our own initiative, but with Alfa’s agreement, the same with the Ferrari Sergio.”

“This was done under our own initiative, but with full agreement from Ferrari. Because this was a homage to Sergio Pininfarina it was something very personal for us and Luca di Montezemolo had a very strong personal relationship with him, so he completely trusted us. We showed him a few times some drawings, but most of Ferrari saw it for the first time when it was revealed at the Geneva show.”