Octane’sMassimo Delbò– who met the maestro many times – pays tribute to a car design legend who passed away on 13 March
FEW PEOPLE can claim to have marked the style of a decade in the way of Marcello Gandini. The ‘wedge shape’ trend of the 1970s was a Marcello Gandini trademark, typified by his Lamborghini Countach. Born in Turin to a musician father who hoped his son would share that interest, at five years old Gandini was captivated by a Meccano set he received as a present. As an adult, his talent was so apparent that, even without specific design schooling, he was hired by Bertone in 1965, when only 27 years old, to manage the style of one of the most important carrozzerie of the period.
Among Gandini’s first tasks was to create the shape for a new sports car, of which the extraordinary rolling chassis had been shown at the Turin motor show of October 1965. This was the new V12 transverse-mid-engined Lamborghini that would storm the market mere months later when, the following March, the Miura was introduced at the 1966 Geneva show. The car led to the coining of the phrase ‘supercar’, instantly putting the names of Lamborghini, Bertone and Gandini on the map, and it is still considered one of the most beautiful cars ever manufactured.
The Miura also instigated that special relationship between Carrozzeria Bertone, Marcello Gandini and Lamborghini that went on to last for more than 30 years, providing some of the most amazing show-cars and production greats, including the 1967 Marzal, with its transparent cockpit, hexagonal details and long gullwing doors. That same year came the Alfa Romeo Montreal concept, and just one year later the Alfa Romeo Carabo. Making its debut at the 1968 Turin show, the Carabo is considered by many to have been the most transformational concept car ever shown, and its wedge shape stormed the motoring world. It marked the beginning of a new decade of automotive style, thanks to Gandini.
‘Everybody loved the Carabo,’ Gandini himself later declared, ‘but only Ferruccio Lamborghini had the guts to move forward and enter production.’ It was at the 1971 Geneva motor show that the Lamborghini LP500 Countach ‘idea car’ appeared. It entered production in 1974, almost untouched, and lasted an incredible 15 years, becoming one of the most iconic cars ever, in poster form adorning the walls of millions of teenagers all over the world, and setting a style template for Lamborghini supercars that lasts to this day.
With the making of the Coun
