Somewhere in the motor paradise in the skies, there surely stand now in a long line the big names of the automotive world. Karl Benz, Henry Ford, Ferdinand Porsche, Andre Citroen, Carol Shelby, Enzo Ferrari, Horacio Pagani, Giotto Bizzarrini, Jean-Paul Dallara, and many others are waiting to welcome the hand of the latest addition to this magnificent array - Marcello Gandini, the legendary car designer who passed away last night at the age of 85 in Turin, Italy.
Born in 1938 and the son of a conductor, Gandini began his amazing career in 1965 at the Bertone workshop where he joined. This was not the first time he approached it, he tried to get there back in 1963 but faced opposition from Giorgietto Giugiaro, who was then the head designer of the workshop, and it was only Giugiaro's departure from the workshop that paved the way for his joining. He joined and in fact made it one of the most influential in the way cars are designed and planned, whether they were popular like the first edition Volkswagen Polo, or legends like the Lamborghini Miura.
And the masterpiece that perhaps was not the first supercar, but laid the foundation for what would define them for the following years - a rear-mid V12 engine, uncompromising performance, and a design that did not age even decades later - was just the beginning of his activity in the field. In fact.
Next to it, the other sports cars that he designed and others he designed for, because everyone wanted a piece of his genius, are still today huge icons of how a car should look and what passion should be put into it. Names like De Tomaso Pantera, Lancia Stratos, Lamborghini Countach and Diablo, Maserati Bi-Turbo and even Ferrari Dino 308/GT4, the first and last Ferrari designed by Bertone's workshop. He is also the man behind the famous "scissor doors", which open forward and upward and first appeared in the Alfa 33 Carabo concept car and were implemented in the Countach and Diablo.
But his fingerprint was not only at the top of dream cars. He also signed the Autobianchi A112, the 1980 Renault 5 Turbo and the second generation of Renault 5 in 1984, Fiat X1/9, first generation of Volkswagen Polo as mentioned, the first generation of BMW 5 Series that established in 1972 the best sports-sedan-saloon lineage in the world, Citroen BX and many others.
What made him one of the design giants was his ability to move in his works between the implementation of techniques of building everyday practical cars, with an emphasis on functionality and usability, alongside creating cars whose essence was a dynamic sculpture that looked in motion even when standing still like the Alfa Romeo Montreal.
Today there are also creations that have combined these two things, as in the case of the Lancia Stratos - a car that began as a design exercise and turned against all odds into a crazy rally machine, including an almost panoramic windshield surrounding the driver's compartment. But also its ability to move between styles, with the striking examples being the transition from the sensuous curves of Lamborghini Miura to the sharp, cutting lines of the Countach.
It seems that these are transitions and abilities that could only come from the combination of a design genius with a mechanical vision no less than aesthetic, and no less than that of a person who lived in a time when the process of car design began and ended with a sketch laid on a paper block without a computer that determines the angle of sunlight, roof height, or tail end.
Raise one in his memory.