Giovanni Michelotti
Giovanni Michelotti (born October 6, 1921 in Turin ; † January 23, 1980 ibid) was an Italian automobile designer .
life and work
Giovanni Michelotti began his career in 1936 at the age of 15 with the bodybuilder Stabilimenti Farina . There he worked his way up from an assistant to a leading designer within a short period of time. In 1946 he started his own business as a freelance designer in Turin.
Although he has always worked for various body shops, he initially mainly worked for his personal friend Alfredo Vignale . Most of the Ferraris built by Vignale in the early 1950s were designed by Giovanni Michelotti.
In November 1954, 30 (some even speak of 40) different vehicles of different brands or body shops based solely on his designs were exhibited at the Turin Motor Show . Whether Ferrari, Maserati , Lancia , Alfa Romeo or Fiat , their outer shell often enough came from Vignale , Pininfarina , Ghia , Bertone , Allemano and other body manufacturers.
It was not until 1959 that his own body shop was founded instead of the previous pure office operation on the tenth floor of a high-rise building that made it possible for Michelotti to keep his ideas more secrecy and to simplify direct collaboration with the automobile construction companies. Now he could make prototypes himself. Until 1965, Michelotti was supported by the Swiss Dany Brawand , who influenced the design of numerous car bodies and from 1960 was largely solely responsible for the designs for Moretti .
For a while he worked as a house designer for the English car manufacturer Triumph . In addition to prototypes, he designed the models TR 4 , Herald , Vitesse , the sedans 1300 , 2000 , Dolomite , the Spitfire 4 and the GT 6 . He also designed the Daffodil for DAF in Holland and the following models such as the 55 . He also designed the Volvo 300 series and truck cabs.
Michelotti made the Maserati 3500 GT Vignale Spider and Maserati Sebring bodyworked by Vignale . Participation in the design of the BMW 700 is guaranteed. The BMW 3200 Michelotti Vignale presented in Turin in 1959 was also designed by him. The influence he exerts on the general body design is sometimes underestimated, since due to the way he works, hardly any car model he originally designed bears a direct reference to the actual designer. Michelotti was responsible for a large number of designs, he designed a total of over 1200 bodies. His most famous designs include the VW 1200 Ghia Aigle, Fiat 1200 Allemano, Lancia Aprilia Vignale Coupé, Maserati 3500 or Maserati 5000 GT Allemano , Alfa-Romeo 2000 Vignale, Nardi 750 ND, Italia 2000, Abarth 2400, Alpine A106 and the Reliant Scimitar SS 1 , probably his last draft.
After Giovanni Michelotti's death, employees continued to run the Michelotti design company until the early 1990s. A reopening took place through his son Edgardo, who has now merged with a descendant of Alfredo Vignales to form Michelotti & Vignale .
As a homage to Pop Popne's father's extraordinary achievement, Edgardo maintains a website and organizes an annual meeting in Turin, with participants from all over Europe, often in carriages originally designed by Giovanni Michelotti.
literature
- Georg Amtmann, Halwart Schrader: Italian sports cars. BLV-G, ISBN 3-405-13459-5 .
- Edgardo Michelotti, Giancarlo Cavallini: Giovanni Michelotti a free stylist. Fondazione Negri, Brescia 2019, ISBN 978-8-88910-841-3 .
Web links
- List of Vignale bodies (90 percent of the Vignale bodies listed there come from the pen of Giovanni Michelotti)
- www.michelottievignale.it (in Italian)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Alessandro Sannia: Enciclopedia dei carrozzieri italiani , Società Editrice Il Cammello, Torino, 2017, ISBN 978-8896796412 , p. 146.
- ↑ Paolo Tumminelli, Car Design, teNeues 2004, ISBN 3-8238-4561-6 , page 390.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Michelotti, Giovanni |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Italian automobile designer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 6, 1921 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Turin |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 23, 1980 |
| Place of death | Turin |