Marcello Gandini graduates at 85. «My father wanted me to be a pianist, I made Lamborghini engines play»

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«My father was a conductor and wanted me to become a pianist, but I hated all those keys on the Steinway. Only when he got aboard the Lamborghini Miura did dad understand that I knew how to make other notes play, those of the engines.” The Polytechnic of Turin awarded an honorary degree in Mechanical Engineering to Marcello Gandini, the Turin car designer, born in 1938, who designed the most beautiful Lamborghini models: Miura, Countach and Diablo, as well as the car preferred by Lawyer Agnelli , the Fiat X19; Alfa Romeo Montreal; the Maserati Biturbo and Chubasco; the Lancia Stratos and also small cars such as the mini-Innocenti. To the scores of Mozart and Bach, Gandini preferred to play with the meccano and then with the drawings of the custom-built cars.

The car rebel

«The origins of my education – Gandini recalled in the lecture he held at the Polytechnic – lie in a family tradition that did not contemplate many digressions: the natural outlet was the
humanistic, literary and classical studies. By custom I have therefore
attended classical high school and studied piano. Then I rebelled and followed my own path.” In first year of high school, with the money he had been given to buy a book of Latin translations, Marcello Gandini bought the book «Endothermic Engines» by Dante Giacosa, the father of Topolino. «I devoured it and learned it by heart. The first message I want to draw from these considerations and communicate to the young future engineers and designers present is: derive from limitations and impositions a strong, stubborn and constructive sense of rebellion”.

The relay with Giugiaro

«To design something new, you need to know everything», says Gandini who during his formative years studied like a madman, designed everything, and at the age of 26 showed his works to Nuccio Bertone, who hired him two years later. Gandini takes the place of the other rising star of car design, Giorgetto Giugiaro of the same age. Gandini remained in the Turin body shop for 14 years, during which he designed some of the most popular Italian sports cars of the 60s and 70s including the Lamborghini Miura, Espada, Urraco and Countach.

The next project in Qatar

Marcello Gandini turned 85 in August but has never stopped working and innovating. «I try to keep busy. My next project is in Qatar, I’m working on a training platform for the Doha car museum. And then I have other ideas that I want to develop.” Over the last decade, his commitment has focused on research and innovation, with the aim of reinventing the way a car is produced, at every level. This research resulted in a series of patents and inventions.

«I prefer the freedom of the pencil»

Since the 1980s Gandini has been a freelancer and works on his own. «Even if it is very difficult at the beginning, you must never stop looking for the right job for you, the people who value you and enable you to express your skills and talent» he reminded the students of the Polytechnic. «Use technology for what it is, that is, a means to
put ideas into practice. But don’t stop writing, drawing, doing calculations, creating sketches on paper. The pencil is an extraordinary means of connection between the brain – ideas – and reality, and starting a project starting from a sheet of paper and a pencil means that there is an idea. If there is no original idea, no technological prodigy can create it for you.”