When it comes to automotive success stories, there are very few (if any) that can compare with the collaboration between Ferrari and Pininfarina. It all started when two great men, entrepreneur Enzo Ferrari and coachbuilder Giovanni Battista Pininfarina, crossed paths in the early 1950s. It may sound like the beginning of an ordinary story, but it wasn’t at all like that.
Just think about it: although each needed the other’s expertise, neither one wanted to meet the other anywhere else than on his own home turf. Both had oversized egos: Ferrari didn’t want to go to Turin, where Pininfarina was based, and Pininfarina refused to travel to Maranello, Ferrari’s hometown.
It took the two men more than a year to agree to meet halfway, in the town of Tortona. The man who convinced them to reach a compromise was none other than Giovanni Battista’s son, the late Sergio Pininfarina, who passed away last year.
In a 2006 interview for The Official Ferrari Magazine, Sergio Pininfarina recalls the famous first meeting between the two automotive titans and tells many other interesting stories about his ensuing collaboration with “Il Commendatore” Enzo Ferrari. Imagine Ferrari’s surprise when Giovanni Pininfarina told him that his son Sergio, a fresh design graduate at the time, would manage Pininfarina’s Ferrari account…
Follow the jump to hear more stories about Pininfarina’s collaboration with Enzo Ferrari and his successor, Luca di Montezemolo, including their different approach to design and how Enzo refused Pininfarina’s proposal for a four-door Ferrari with the 1980 Pinin concept car.
By Dan Mihalascu
VIDEO