The Pininfarina Battista is officially award-winningly gorgeous

As obvious stories go, ‘Famous Italian Design House Wins Design Award’ is probably up there with ‘Should Have Taken That COVID Thing More Seriously’ and ‘Houses Are Expensive These Days’. So you’ll be as unsurprised as we were to find that Pininfarina, one of the most esteemed design houses and coachbuilders in the world, has claimed the Design Award at the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este in Lake Como.

This is Pininfarina, after all, Ferrari’s favoured designer for decades and the company responsible for a parade of hits from Alfa, Fiat, Lancia and beyond. So while the Battista is the first car from Pininfarina as a standalone manufacturer, it’s hardly the brand’s first rodeo. Or indeed, fancy-pants car show. 

Really, the Italians are to design what the Swiss are to watches and the Scottish are to whisky – not just reliably better, but known for being reliably better. That a Pininfarina-styled car would win a design award is perhaps as much of a fait accompli as a Coen brothers movie being critically acclaimed. And that’s before any insinuations creep in about an Italian car winning an Italian design award.

Again, we find ourselves reaching for the only Latin phrase we know beyond et cetera – de gustibus non est disputandum. Or to put it another way, it’s pointless to argue over matters of taste. The guests of the 2021 Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este think it’s gorgeous. We think it’s gorgeous. You have an entire comments section to work this one out for yourselves.