What Are Your Favorite Marcello Gandini Car Designs? (Here’s the Big List)
Italian car designer Marcello Gandini passed away yesterday (March 13, 2024) at age 85. He leaves behind a mind-bogglingly deep catalog of contributions to automotive aesthetics. There's no more fitting discussion for today's question post than this: What are your favorite Marcello Gandini car designs?
I had to pluralize this prompt from "what's your favorite" to "favorites." While trying to expand my appreciation for Gandidi's work, I realized he touched far more car designs than even what I thought were the deep cuts.
For me, the Lamborghini Diablo is a total basic-boy choice but I can't deny it's one of my faves. That was truly the supercar of my childhood and I will always love looking at those cars. But among the slightly lesser-known items, I think I have to call out the Alfa Romeo Navajo—a truly bonkers-looking space car that looks right out of the original Star Wars movie.
If you're looking for a quick but neat contextualization of Gandini's big designs, this video from LA's Petersen Museum is a nice little piece:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUgQfCqAAog
Marcello Gandini’s Car Designs and Contributions
The most complete-looking list of Gandini's production and concept car designs was on Wikipedia. I augmented the editable encyclopedia's rundown and looked into the models that I hadn't heard of. But I still have a feeling I might be missing a few. Interestingly, his obituary in the Italian publication La Repubblica mentions he "collaborated as an independent designer with car manufacturers such as Renault, Nissan, Toyota [and] Subaru" (translated from Italian) but I couldn't readily find any other references to his work with those last two.
Not all cars on this list were the sole product of Gandini, of course. But here are the big ones he had his hands in. I strongly recommend you Google the ones you don't know about—they're all pretty wild.
Alfa Romeo Montreal
Alfa Romeo 33 Carabo
Alfa Romeo Navajo
Audi 50
Autobianchi A112, and Runabout
Bertone Pirana
Bugatti EB 110
BMW 5 Series (E12, first gen)
Citroën BX
Citroën GS Camargue
Cizeta-Moroder V16T
De Tomaso Biguà concept (which became the Qvale Mangusta)
De Tomaso Pantera SI
De Tomaso Pantera Prossima Generazione
Dino/Ferrari 308 GT4
Ferrari Rainbow
Fiat Dino Coupé
Fiat 132
Fiat X1/9
Iso Lele
Iso Grifo 90
Iso Grifo 96
Jaguar Ascot
Lamborghini Bravo
Lamborghini Countach
Lamborghini P140
Lamborghini Diablo
Lamborghini P147 Acosta
Lamborghini Espada
Lamborghini Jarama
Lamborghini Miura
Lamborghini Urraco
Lamborghini Marzal
Lancia Stratos Zero
Lancia Stratos
Lancia Sibilo
Maserati Khamsin
Maserati Ghibli II
Maserati Quattroporte (II and IV generations)
Maserati Shamal
Maserati Chubasco
Maserati Biturbo variants
Nissan AP-X
NSU Trapeze
Perodua Kancil
Qvale Mangusta
Reliant FW11
Renault 5 Turbo
Renault 5 Supercinq
Renault Magnum
TaMo Racemo
Stola S81 Stratos
Stola S86 Diamante
Volkswagen Polo (Mk1, first gen)
Volvo Tundra
Gandini was also known to have dabbled in architectural and interior designs, having supposedly worked on a nightclub interior, among other things. At the time of his passing, it's said that he was still at work and planning to contribute to a training program at a car museum in Doha, Qatar.