Italdesign-Giugiaro S.p.A.
The Begining
On 13 February 1968, Italdesign of Turin was founded, under the original name of Studi Italiani Realizzazione Prototipi S.p.A. The company was founded and developed by two Piedmont families, the Giugiaros and the Mantovanis, and since its creation has spanned two generations.
Theirs was an innovative formula for the automobile industry: creation of a services company for the large, multinationals operating in the sector. The intuition of a young designer and a proven architect on the future trends of the automobile market, where the great carmakers outsource the entire design of a vehicle or phases of the new vehicle development process, with the intention of expanding the range of products in a short time, substantially reducing the “time to market” of new models.
The partnership between Giorgetto Giugiaro and Aldo Mantovani has proven to be a winning one from the start, enhancing the fusion of creativity and solid skills, style and design.
It all started with an important job: the Alfasud design for Alfa Romeo, which had the honour of being the first major assignment for a new vehicle (and a new production unit to locate in Southern Italy). The assignment included the stylistic research and realization of models, the structural design and construction of the first prototypes for the bench tests and road tests, redacting a production plan, assistance in the start up phases of production on the assembly and finishing line. Concurrently, Giugiaro immediately opened a research laboratory, which would characterise the company activities in the years to come. The experimental “prototype” was made without a specific customer job order: it is a media that boosted the image of the company and which allowed it to propose new stylistic and aesthetic features as well as stimulating and provocative ideas in terms of functional and performance solutions, technological innovations and new materials.
The Bizzarrini Manta displayed at the Auto Show in Turin in 1968 was the first of more than 75 dream cars that the company has built and presented on every continent, earning its praise and eliciting an exceptional response from the press, radio and television and professionals in the sector.
The Seventies and Eighties
The company launched a relationship with Volkswagen, which would culminate in the creation of three exciting new models for VW, the Passat, the Golf and the Scirocco, catapulting Italdesign onto the world stage. Other big foreign carmakers assigned Italdesign with design services, including BMW and Hyundai.
In April of 1975, Fiat hired the design offices in Moncalieri to define a prototype car that might breathe new life into the Lancia name. Italdesign responded to the challenge with the Delta, which would be flanked by a high performance 4x4, and Prisma in the hatchback model.
Even more challenging was the plan for the Fiat Panda. Giugiaro and Mantovani had to respond to the requests for “maximum passenger space paired with the lowest possible costs.” The artist and the engineer put their complementary skills together to construct an innovative package, transforming the very concept of utility vehicles. A big small car that was popular even with the more well-heeled car enthusiasts (1980).
In the first half of the eighties, Italdesign armed itself with the most sophisticated equipment offered by the new information technologies: CAS (Computer Aided Styling), CAD (Computer Aided Design), CAE (Computer Aided Engineering) and CAM (Computer Aided Manufacturing). By leveraging these advanced systems, the company introduced an operating methodology that allowed it to manage the entire process of creating and designing a vehicle, interacting in real time with the customers’ and suppliers’ structures (co-engineering and simultaneous engineering). In those years, Italdesign created and designed three very successful models for the Fiat Group, the Uno, the Thema and the Croma (the Thema and Croma, along with the Saab 9000 are all part of a joint project of manufacturing rationalization), while it continued to increase its customer portfolio with programmes for Seat, Renault, Chrysler, Ford and Toyota.
This was the period when Italdesign entered the second generation, namely when Fabrizio Giugiaro and Marco Mantovani respectively, joined the Design and Models Division and the Design and Development Division and which they would take over responsibility in July 1996.
The Nineties
At the start of the nineties, Italdesign was transformed into a Group when it acquired SALLIG, a company founded in 1960 that designs and builds acrylic, cast iron and zamak matrices for prototype elements in the automotive sector and today also operates in the aeronautics and household appliances sector.
ETM, Engineering Technologies Methods, also became part of the Group. Founded in 1984, ETM has integrated its design services with equipment for silicone moulding which has allowed the transition from the acrylic prototype to the pre-series in a material with characteristics similar to the finished product.
The activities were further developed through an aggressive policy of internationalisation which led to the creation of Diseño Industrial Italdesign Srl (1992) in Barcelona. The objective of the company is to interact with the complex Spanish manufacturing industry in the design and construction of models, master models and prototypes.
To best follow the developments on the Asian market, the Group set up the Technology Design Consortium (1996) as a 50-50 joint venture with Fata Group S.p.A., to work on the Chinese and Vietnamese markets.
In the early part of 1999, the Group took on a new name, Italdesign-Giugiaro S.p.A.
1996 Italdesign Legram (Fiat Bravo)
