Highs and lows
When it comes to Italian car designers and design houses, a handful of big names always dominate the conversation. Men like Giorgetto Giugiaro, Marcello Gandini and Battista ‘Pinin’ Farina.
But there’s another hugely prolific, hugely influential designer, who, while still a well-known name, possibly doesn’t have quite such a high profile. Giovanni Michelotti is probably best remembered for his work for Triumph, but he shaped Alfa Romeos, Ferraris, and even Leyland buses, too.
Not always successfully, it has to be said, so here we present the greatest, and not so great, designs from Michelotti.
1. Alpine A110
Bet you thought we’d start with a Triumph, didn’t you?
We’ll get to them, but first let’s acknowledge the work Michelotti did on early Alpines, establishing an outline that was still going strong on the A110 into the mid-’70s.
2. Standard Vanguard
Michelotti shaped the look of Triumph cars through the 1960s and ’70s, but his relationship with the company dates back to the late 1950s when his employer Vignale was hired to update the Vanguard sold by Triumph’s parent company, Standard.
3. Fiat Michelotti Shellette
This stylish beach car was the result of a collaboration between Michelotti and yacht designer Phillip Schell, and based on the Fiat 850.
Only 80 were built, one of which was owned by Jacqueline Onassis and kept at her home on the Greek island of Skorpios.
4. Triumph Herald
The Herald’s slim pillars gave it a crisp, modern look and made it a doddle to drive because the visibility was incredible.
When Triumph slotted a six-cylinder engine in to create the Vitesse, Michelotti added a quad-headlight set-up and dropped the redesigned bonnet to give the sports saloon a menacing scowl that was later aped by the facelifted Herald, seen here.
5. Alfa Romeo 6C 2500SS Stabilimenti Farina
Stabilimenti Farina was run by Giovanni Carlo Farina and his brother Battista ‘Pinin’ Farina, who later split to set up his own far more famous design house.
It was also where Michelotti cut his teeth, and where he created this striking Alfa Romeo 6C in 1947.
6. Triumph Spitfire
Perhaps Michelotti’s most famous work, the low-slung Spitfire looked so good that few watching one drive by for the first time would guess it was essentially a re-bodied Herald.
Michelotti would go on to update the design several times, and even turned the Spit into a mini E-type by designing a fastback coupé body for the GT6.
7. Ford Anglia Torino
Worried that design-conscious 1960s Italians would find the Ford Anglia 105E’s fins and angular back window a little too 1950s, Ford’s Italian operation commissioned Michelotti to wrap it in new sheet metal.
The bland result was hardly Michelotti’s best work, however, proving even the best can have a bad day, and the Anglia Torino tanked.
9. Triumph Fury
Sadly, arguably the prettiest of all Michelotti’s Triumph designs never made it to production.
This stunning two-seater is the Fury, a monocoque sports car powered by a Triumph 2.0-litre straight-six and featuring very fancy (for 1964) pop-up headlights.
Triumph decided to extend the life of its separate-chassis TR line instead, but fortunately the prototype survived.
10. Triumph TR5 Ginevra
Another beautiful Michelotti Triumph that might have been was this TR5 Ginevra.
Michelotti and his team created it in record time so it could appear at the 1968 Geneva Motor Show, but Triumph had given the job of turning the TR5 into the TR6 to Karmann.
11. BMW 1500-2000
The car that put BMW on the map was a sharp-looking rear-wheel-drive sports saloon that arrived just in time to give Germany’s emerging middle class somewhere to put their cash.
It’s unclear how much work Michelotti did on the Neue Klasse, but he was hired as a consultant on the project, and the crisp lines and big glasshouse certainly seem to have benefited from his eye.
12. DAF 44
Michelotti played a key role in Dutch marque DAF’s growth during the 1960s.
His 44 saloon of 1966 was bigger and better looking than anything DAF had made up to that point – but it still came fitted with the same clever continuously variable Variomatic transmission.
13. Triumph 2000/2500
The original 2000 was unveiled in 1963 – doing for Triumph what the Neue Klasse had for BMW.
Along with its bigger-engined 2500 brother pictured here, it was later facelifted to give it the same frontal styling as the open-top, 2000-based Stag, yet another Michelotti creation.
14. Reliant Scimitar SS1
The two-seat Scimitar, Michelotti’s final production car, and a machine that didn’t go into production until 1984, four years after his death, probably wasn’t his finest hour.
Filling a gap in the market left by the demise of Michelotti’s Spitfire, the glassfibre-bodied Scimitar’s nose featured unusual headlights that were visible at all times, but popped up when switched on, like a Porsche 928’s, and a slightly topsy-turvy rear that borrowed from his earlier Ferrari NART Spider.
15. Lancia-Nardi Blue Ray
Enrico Nardi – these days most famous for his steering wheels – commissioned Michelotti to design two incredible coupés in the 1950s, both based on a Lancia Aurelia chassis.
The Blue Ray II, pictured here, lost the first car’s double-bubble windscreen and central headlight, but not much in the way of drama.
16. Leyland P76
When Leyland’s Australian subsidiary felt it needed a big car to take on Ford and Holden, it decided Michelotti was the man to tell them how it should look.
The P76 started well, winning Wheels magazine’s Car of the Year award in 1973, but a combination of poor build quality, reliability problems and strikes meant the P76 was soon getting its P45.
17. Leyland National bus
Rather happier, if less glamorous, was Michelotti’s work on a very different kind of big Leyland bus.
The designer had already created vehicle cabs for Scammell trucks when he was hired to pen a modern bus for ’70s Britain.
18. Triumph TR4
By the dawn of the 1960s the design of the TR3, and particularly its cut-down doors, was looking decidedly dated.
Its Michelotti-penned successor, however – which bore more than a passing resemblance to his earlier TR3-based Italia 2000 GT – was bang on the pace, and far more practical thanks to proper doors and wind-up windows.
19. Aston Martin DB2/4 Bertone dhc
In the 1950s, Chicago-based industrialist and car importer Stanley Arnolt bought rolling chassis from the likes of Bristol and Aston Martin, had them shipped to Italy to be fitted with new bodywork, and then sold them in the US.
One of those projects was this Aston Martin DB2/4 dhc, which Michelotti designed for Bertone.
20. Lancia Flavia convertible
Lancia’s upmarket Flavia was most often seen as a three-box Berlina saloon, but it was also available as a coupé or convertible.
Pininfarina handled the fixed-head’s styling, but once again Michelotti and Vignale were asked to turn it into a stylish convertible.
21. Ferrari 212 Inter Vignale
Though not the designer most frequently associated with the marque, Michelotti was responsible for a string of – often limited-production – Ferraris during the 1950s, including the 340 Mexico, the 225S and this eye-catching 212 Inter.
22. Maserati 3500GT
Carrozzeria Touring got the job of designing the coupé version of the 3500GT, but when it came time to create a convertible, Maserati switched its affection to Vignale, and Michelotti.
And when Maserati needed to turn the hardtop 3500GT into the Sebring for the US market, it was Vignale and Michelotti again that got the call.
23. Lancia Mizar
Michelotti had his busiest years in the 1950s and ’60s, but even in the 1970s, when he was in his 50s, the designer’s creative juices hadn’t run dry.
This 1974 Mizar concept was a sporty four-seat wedge with gullwing doors, based on the Beta.
24. Ferrari 365GTB/4 NART Spider Competizione
Michelotti designed many cars for Triumph, but one he definitely didn’t have a hand in was the TR7 (that was Harris Mann).
But is it just us or does this re-bodied Daytona Michelotti, created for Luigi Chinetti’s North American Racing Team, bear more than a passing resemblance to the BL wedge?
We hope you enjoyed this gallery. Please click the ‘Follow’ button above for more super stories from Classic & Sports Car.