Giugiaro quits Giugiaro

Italian automotive demi-god Giorgetto Giugiaro has cut all remaining ties with the ItalDesign-Giugiaro design house he founded.

The 76-year-old designer, who was the often-unsung pen behind some of the world’s best-loved cars, announced by email today that he and his 50-year-old son Fabrizio had resigned from the company’s board.

Giugiaro founded ItalDesign-Giugiaro in 1968, but tough market conditions for independent design and engineering houses convinced him to sell 90.1 per cent of the company to Audi in 2010.

The man named Designer of the Century in 2000 retained the remaining 9.9 per cent stake for himself and his son, but transferred the last shares to Audi on June 28.

In the last decade, all of Italy’s classic design houses have hit trouble, including Pininfarina, Bertone and Zagato, and Giugiaro sought a close tie to the Volkswagen Group to secure the future of the company he founded.

Giugiaro’s statement today said he would also resign from his position as honorary chairman and “dedicate more time to his personal interests”.

His company is responsible for the design of more than 100 production cars, but became a go-to resource in the 1970s and ‘80s for its ability to develop and engineer cars to turn-key levels before handing them to car companies to build.

The most famous cars to emerge from his pen include the original Volkswagen Golf Mark I, the first Fiat Panda and Maserati’s 3200 GT and 4200 GT. Other credits include the Maserati Kubang concept car, the Daewoo Matiz (which started life as an electric car-sharing proposal) and the Audi 80.

Car designers are usually judged by their sports car work, and Giugiaro has had plenty, including and the Lamborghini’s Gallardo, the De Tomaso Mangusta, the Lotus Esprit, the Ghibli and Bora from Maserati and the Alfetta GT and Brera (no, the good one) from Alfa Romeo.

He also designed the seminal DeLorean DMC-12, BMW’s M1 and the Alfa Romeo Giulia Sprint GT and the Alfasud.

His company turned out designs for every automotive continent, including working for American Motors, Ford, Cadillac and Buick in North America and for Alfa Romeo, Audi, BMW, Bugatti, Ferrari, Fiat, FSO, Iso Rivolta, Lamborghini, Lancia, Lotus, Maserati, Porsche, Renault, Saab, Seat, Simca, Skoda and Volkswagen in Europe. It designed cars for Zastava in Russia, Hyundai, Ssangyong and Daewoo in Korea, Mazda, Subaru, Suzuki, Lexus, Toyota and Isuzu in Japan.

ItalDesign-Giugiaro didn’t stop at cars, though. It designed cameras for Nikon, including the classic F4, F5, F6, D3 and D4 models, plus the D800 as recently as 2012, as well as designing watches for Seiko and handguns, machine guns and shotguns for Beretta and motorbikes for Ducati and Suzuki.

In his 60-year design career, he worked with Bertone and Ghia before founding his own company in Torino. He was also one of just 13 inaugural inductees into the European Automotive Hall of Fame in 2001.

Audi has brought in an additional 250 people since it took its took the controlling share of the company, with its former design head, the Italian Wolfgang Egger, taking over the role of chief designer there.