Remembering Giorgetto Giugiaro’s Classic & Sports Car interview

It’s also reminiscent of his most repeated quote, sadly not captured in the pages of Classic & Sports Car but in Italian, where he tells an interviewer, “Curved lines are actually bullsh*t,” and when asked to elaborate, simply replied, “no”.

That paints a picture of a grumpy man, but that is far from the truth.

Giugiaro was just as happy to heap praise in his interview, on some of his own cars, but others, too.

He cites the Alfa Romeo Giulia GT as his favourite design that has reached production, an early work of his at Bertone that proved his big break. In fact, he liked it so much that he saved for three years to buy a 1300 GT Junior for himself.

Meanwhile, he states the Fiat Panda was his most satisfying job, one in which his team was given real freedom to tackle the question of how to make a low-cost car.

History agrees that both were sensational efforts, in very different ways.

The Fiat Panda was a job that Giugiaro says was very satisfying

More magnanimously and, yes, probably playing to the audience somewhat, Giugiaro also complemented Jaguar and Bentley, stating that the two companies had an admirable approach to keeping a consistent identity through the decades, without being slavish to the past.

“In fact, I regret not being allowed to design more cars for British manufacturers,” he told Richard.

The Gordon-Keeble GT and Lotus Esprit were his only two efforts, the latter ending in tension between himself and Colin Chapman as the Lotus chairman relentlessly pushed for cost savings. 

Richard ended that interview by reminding Giugiaro of the British car he’d forgotten in that list, the Morris Ital, that derived its name from his ItalDesign studio.

“Why do you British journalists always ask me about the car?” he exclaimed with Latinate arm waving, somewhat fairly, because although Ital had been consulted on the project, it was really the work of internal British Leyland designer Harris Mann.

The obvious reply was: “you were happy enough to take the money to put your name on it!” I don’t blame Richard for holding his tongue instead.

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