Michelotti helped define an era

A pencil soloist who spread the allure of Italian design well ahead of today’s globalization, Giovanni Michelotti was one of the most prolific stylists of sports cars of the 20th century.

During his 44-year professional career, more than 1,200 of Michelotti’s designs were turned into cars in which at least one unit was built, according to his son, Edgardo.

The quantity, quality and international reach of his creativity are the reasons why Giovanni Michelotti has earned a spot in the European Automotive Hall of Fame.

This week he will join three other Class of 2009 inductees in the Hall: sports car and tractor maker Ferruccio Lamborghini; DAF founder and transmission innovator Hub van Doorne; and the father of the Baby Benz, former Mercedes CEO Werner Breitschwerdt.

Giorgetto Giugiaro, chairman of Italdesign Giugiaro, remembers meeting Michelotti as a young designer.

“I looked to his work with the same admiration that I had for the Italian design greats of the time, such as Bertone, Pininfarina and Ghia,” Giugaro said.

For Giugiaro, Michelotti -- together with Alfredo Vignale -- had a special talent for the one-off units, or the very limited runs of especially tailored models.

“Michelotti was the prime example of an individual prevailing over an organization,” said Leonardo Fioravanti, owner of Fioravanti S.r.l. design and engineering consulting, and president of the Italian association of coachbuilders.

Although Fioravanti considers many of Michelotti’s cars a bit over-decorated from a styling perspective, he admits that the Turin-born designer was a true forerunner when it comes to globalization.

“Michelotti went to Hino of Japan to design the Contessa in the 1950s when almost no one here in Europe even knew what Hino was,” Fioravanti said.

Fiercely independent

Michelotti is considered the father of freelance car design. He essentially created the field when he opened his own studio, Carrozzeria Michelotti, in 1949.

His first job as an independent contractor was to design the body for a variant of the Ferrari 166 Inter. This was the first of 192 Ferraris he penned. The most famous Michelotti designs include the 1962 Alpine A110, 1962 Triumph Spitfire and 1966 T6; 1961 BMW 1500 and 1968 2800 CS coupe.

Other customers included Abarth, Cisitalia, DAF, Fiat, Ford, Lancia and Maserati.

Michelotti declined numerous offers to join coachbuilders and automakers in Italy and abroad, because he was content to remain in Turin and keep his independence as a freelancer. Born in Turin in 1921, Michelotti attended the best car-design school existing in the 1930s: Stabilimenti Farina.

He died in 1980 after a short battle with cancer. He was 59. Carrozzeria Michelotti closed in 1993.