Leonardo Fioravanti, The Obsession With Air

Not merely simple lines that offer thrills, but shapes that cut through the air, using it to their own advantage. For Leonardo Fioravanti, icon of Italian automotive style, design and function are the foundations for aspiring to beauty

Words Alessandro Giudice

Photography Alessandro Barteletti

Video Andrea Ruggeri

Archive Courtesy of Leonardo Fioravanti Archive

“Your right ear is a few millimetres lower than your left.”

Leonardo Fioravanti, engineer and designer, looks and analyses, with his own very personal measuring device made of bright and very acute eyes and an ever-moving brain, processing and classifying anything that has a shape, assessing it and seeking to improve it. Elegantly sporting a blue blazer, despite his eighty years you can still feel that energy that would prefer to be in a shirt with the sleeves rolled up, doing what comes naturally to him: designing.

He welcomes us to his home on the hills of Moncalieri, an ancient and aristocratic place split between two marvels. One is the infinite view over the Alps and beyond, and the other the entrance to a paradise that on first sight appears to be a bunker, but is packed with life-sized scale models, shapes, drawings, models that seem destined for the mobility of the future but were instead designed ten, twenty or thirty years ago, their colours, lines and solutions leaving you speechless. It is the story of a life driven by creativity, where functions are defined by ideas that are as simple as they are effective, giving the true measure of genius blended with style.

Leonardo Fioravanti’s biography is only apparently linear. It started with a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Milan Polytechnic, developing at Pininfarina and the Fiat Group, but is marked by the constant and almost obsessive presence of Ferrari, the brand of which Fioravanti became Deputy General Director, but for which he also designed some of its most iconic models - the Dino, Daytona, BB, F40, Testarossa, 308, to name but a few. “I have always had a soft spot for Ferrari, even before I began to work for Pininfarina,” he admits.

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Can you tell us about the genesis of one of the most representative Ferraris of all time, the 308?

 “The story of the 308 began in 1969. The idea was to make a different Ferrari: fewer cylinders, a lower price, more compact in size and accessible to a broader public. The new car was to have a V8 Ferrari engine mounted transversely, which could reduce the longitudinal dimensions of the car and reduce its costs. I was put in charge of the design. I had a precise reference model in mind: the P6, a Ferrari that I was particularly fond of because of its aerodynamic approach and minimalism. I began to work on the project, and was already pleased with the first drawing. But in the meantime, Enzo Ferrari had set his mind on something different. The “Commendatore” had always been against the idea of placing the engine centrally, behind the seats in front of the rear axle. He said it was a racing set-up, suited to professional drivers but dangerous for regular drivers. Yet something made him change his mind, and he was convinced that the right suspensions and a well-designed aerodynamic bodywork could help a 12-cylinder Ferrari with a central engine, without compromising on safety and making it predictable to handle.”

The choice to increase the cylinders from 8 to 12 was also important in size terms…

“Sure, but the lines I had given the “little” GT were the perfect inspiration. So, Ferrari stopped the plans for the 308 and asked me to design this new car. And thus came the 365 BB.

The BB had a story in its name: all of us who worked on the project — me, Bellei, Sergio Scaglietti — were in love with Brigitte Bardot. When we talked about the new car amongst ourselves, we called it BB, it seemed to be the natural choice because it was charming and thrilled us. When it was presented, it was an instant success. Of course, someone at Maranello turned “our” BB into the Berlinetta Boxer, an incorrect name seeing as the BB wasn’t even a Berlinetta, a name more suited to a car with a front engine, and its engine wasn’t a boxer, which should have had opposing cylinders, but a 180° V flat engine. In any case, after presenting the BB, Ferrari decided to go back to the 308 project.”

Not only smaller and more compact, the 308 was also lighter, which improved its agility. And all with an unmistakeable, impeccable style, similar to what happened with the Dino.

“Yes, also because I reworked my 1969 design, and I was really pleased with the first three-dimensional 1:1 scale model that was built. I suggested fibreglass for the bodywork, as it weighed less than steel and for a car that needed to be cheaper and lighter it made sense. Ferrari accepted, and the first 308 GTB series was like that.

We presented it at the Paris Motor Show on 3 October 1975, and it was an instant success. Commendatore Ferrari was delighted. He could see straight away that it would mean big business. But perhaps he also saw something else: that the car was beautiful in just the right way, the way that stands time.”

As usual, he got it right. Half a century after its début, the 308 is still one of the most iconic Ferraris of all time.

“In addition to the pride of having thought of and designed it, I also had another unexpected surprise, because as a gesture of his recognition — one that I will never forget — the Commendatore decided to give me one. When the 308 was delivered to Pininfarina, I jumped in and drove off to my home in Turin. At one point I saw a friend, I recognised her, slowed down and stopped and wound the window down. She turned round. She saw this low-down thing, a car you certainly didn't see every day, with me inside. “Is that you? Is this a Ferrari?” “Yes.” “Whose is it?” “Mine.” Silence. “What do you mean, mine?” “Yes, it’s mine, and I designed it too.” She got in and I drove her home. I was driving a Ferrari that I had designed and that was given to me by Enzo Ferrari. I was little over thirty. When I tell this story it still seems to be the story of someone else’s life. But it was mine.”

You also designed a four-door Ferrari, the Pinin, but it was never produced. How did that go?

“For Pininfarina's fiftieth anniversary we wanted to do something special: a four-door Ferrari, that had always been Commendatore Farina's dream. It was designed, built and called Pinin, in honour of the founder. It was taken to America, where it was very popular, and then to Maranello, with all the honours. I remember that morning: there was me, Piero Ferrari, the general director and others. We walked round the Pinin, taking it in from every angle. Enzo Ferrari was there, silent and attentive as he was when looking at something serious. And then, the decision. No deal. The reason was as simple as it was brutal: Ferrari produced sports cars in relatively small numbers, and that craft skill had consequences on the construction quality. Nothing catastrophic, because they were beautiful cars that went fast, so you could turn a blind eye to some imprecisions. But the four-door market was something entirely different: like the Mercedes, cars built with a manufacturing precision that, at that time, Ferrari could not match without huge investments. Entering that market with defects that were acceptable on a sports car would have been a strategic error.”

You were born and studied in Milan. What kind of family do you come from?

“My family was originally from Pistoia, so Tuscan to the core, where the first-born was the one who inherited, who decided, who was the one that counted. My grandfather Andrea was the second born, and knowing how things were, he took his things and went off to Genoa, where he became the director of the city schools. Commendatore Andrea Fioravanti — an open-minded man, my father used to say. I remember the huge study he had in his home in Castelletto, one of the higher neighbourhoods in Genoa that looks over the whole city. Children would come for lessons; they were intimidated when they came in but enthusiastic when they left.”

You owe a lot to your grandfather…

“He understood me perfectly, better than anyone else in the family. One afternoon we were on the terrace. There was a model car on the table, I can't remember which. My father, an electro-technical engineer, had set up his own company and he would have wanted me to follow in his footsteps. I didn’t have much time for electricity, but I was profoundly inspired by cars, and my grandfather knew that. He looked at me, pointing to the model, and said: “Forget about your father. Do what you want, follow your passion.” I was quite young, but those words stuck to me like glue.”

What do you remember of the car world when you were young?

“The folly and the excitement. I was twelve years old the first time I stole my father’s car keys. We had two cars: a Fiat 600 and a Fiat 1100 “bauletto”. We lived near Piazza Carlo Erba, a square with a quite large roundabout for that time, surrounded by wide, silent streets. Milan still had a rare quality at night: silence. There wasn’t all the traffic we know today, the roads were clear, and a twelve-year-old boy with his hands on the wheel could drive around quite undisturbed. So that night I took my courage in my hands. I waited for my father to fall asleep, found the keys, left the house, got in the 600 and drove off. The roundabout in Piazza Carlo Erba was free and empty. I drove round and round for an hour, maybe two. I wasn't afraid, I just felt like I was in exactly the right place, doing exactly the right thing. The steering wheel was heavier than I expected, but the pedals reacted in the same way as the three on the piano, which as I played, I imagined were the accelerator, brake and clutch. And the car was an extension of what was inside: a physical machine that translated intentions into trajectories. I went home, parked and put the keys back in their place. My father didn't notice anything, and I went out again the following week and the one after, for months. Firstly in the 600, and later also in the 1100.”

That seems more like the début of a driver than a designer…

“Partly yes, and the two personalities lived side by side for a long time. I went to Monza with some friends who were older than me: I wasn’t eighteen yet, but they were, and that was enough to get into the ‘autodromo’. I sat in the car with them for a few laps, and then said: “Stop, get out, it’s my turn.” And I drove. Fast, apparently — faster than anything that seemed reasonable for someone of my age with no official experience. The day after my eighteenth birthday I got my driving licence. I signed up to the ANCAI, the Italian National Car Racing Association, and began to move up through the ranks: Fiat 500, then 1100, then Alfa Romeo Giulietta Sprint, then the sedan, then the Lancia, always Italian brands. It wasn't a question of nationalism, but they were the ones I loved, and that I could afford. In the end I won two Italian Gran Turismo championships.”

And when did the designer come onto the scene?

“The engineer came first. I studied at Milan Polytechnic but I missed out on a year and a half, perhaps two, of the usual five. It was all the fault of the races, it was Monza’s fault. But then I realised that it was time to stop, to stop racing temporarily and devote my efforts to getting my degree. And from that choice came the most important thing in my studies: my dissertation. The idea in my head was about the aerodynamics of sedans, and all my experience — sailing boats with my father, the pictures of cars and planes I drew as a a child, my passion for fast-moving shapes — was coming together to form a precise intuition.

The problem of making an aerodynamic sedan lay in making the air flow smoothly along the bodywork; the theory of the time was to extend the tail, so that the air flow continued right to the end, without

ever moving away from the surface. But a sedan with a long tail was a hard car to park, to handle, and to sell. There was a contradiction between the ideal aerodynamics and a feasible shape.”

And how did your dissertation solve this contradiction?

“By cutting the tail. Cutting it off precisely in the point in which the air flow was still very close to the surface: not where it wanted to break away, but before, while it was still governed. I discovered that a stable vortex formed precisely in that cutting point: a mass of air that spun on itself, remaining firmly against the rear end, allowing the external flow to run over it as if it was a curved surface. The air didn’t break away, it rode over the vortex. The aerodynamic result was comparable to that of a longer tail, but with a compact car.

The model was built and taken to the Breda wind tunnel, where Milan Polytechnic carried out its experimental tests. It was approved. The dissertation became an official document, published by the university in 1960. It had everything — the calculations, the drawings, the photos of the wind tunnel tests. It was the first thing in my professional career to have a stamp, a date and an institutional recognition. And it bore the signature of a student who had lost two years playing about in Monza.”

What drove you to draw when you were a child? A love of cars or of shapes?

“I used to draw everything, but it always came back to means of transport: aeroplanes, boats, trains, cars, anything that moved. I understood it all only later, when I graduated from the Polytechnic with a dissertation on aerodynamics, and I had all the theoretical instruments to be able to look back and give a name to that old obsession of mine. I was attracted to movement because, as I mentioned earlier, movement is air. And air is the discipline that governs the shapes of everything that flows in the world: the wings of a bird, the hull of a boat, the lines of a car’s bodywork. Shape is not a matter of taste, not at first: it is a physical response to a physical force. Everything else comes after that. My father taught me everything without knowing it, when we went out sailing. He explained how the sails work, how they swell, how they are managed, how the air crosses over them differently depending on the angle of the wind. He didn’t use the word aerodynamic — it wasn’t his field — but that was exactly what he described to me. And I listened, without yet realising that I was learning the principle that was to define my whole professional life.”

When and where did that spark that led you to Pininfarina come from?

“Even before I graduated, one morning, I saw a Giulietta Spider with a hard top drive past my house. I stopped. It was one of those cars that block you without you being able to explain why: a few lines, yet so precise and essential that they seem inevitable. There was a plate on the bodywork: a stylised F, with the Pinin Farina brand, already crowned as the absolute benchmark of Italian car design. An engineer who worked in Turin for my father helped me to get an appointment. I hadn’t finished my degree. But I had the drawings, literally packs of them: years of work, sketches, designs, ideas put to paper with the free hand that everyone knew I had. I took them all.”

What was the reaction?

“Sergio Pininfarina and Renzo Carli met with me. They looked closely at the drawings. They were impressed. Then Sergio Pininfarina smiled and said, his tone of voice somewhere between serious and playful: “You’re going to become General Director here one day,” and then added the serious part: “But now go back to Milan, study hard, finish your degree at the Polytechnic and then we will talk again.”

I went back to Milan. I graduated. And then I returned to Turin. I spent the next twenty-four years at Pininfarina. Not only did I become General Director but even Managing Director. Sergio Pininfarina's joke, said smiling at a kid with a load of drawings under his arm, had become my biography.”

With Fioravanti srl, your company set up in 1987 as an architecture firm, designed some very interesting cars, including the Sensiva.

“A 1994 design for an electric car with four-wheel drive, four-wheel steering, an electric motor for each wheel. Each wheel knew exactly what its friction coefficient was, and that information could be used to modulate the power, optimise the braking, manage the traction with a precision that conventional systems couldn’t get close to. In 2006 I sold the patent to Pirelli. Today they call it the Cyber Tyre. They sell it worldwide, mounted on high-end cars that use the information for active safety and driver assistance systems. Whenever I read about this technology in a magazine, I think of Piazza Carlo Erba, my father who slept unsuspectingly, and a twelve-year-old kid who drove round in a 600 wondering why smooth tyres held the road better.”

Thirty years ago, you designed one that still has absolutely modern features today. What does the designer and the electric car enthusiast think today?

“The electric motor is the designer’s freedom. I understood that when I was working on the Sensiva, and that’s what I still say today. A combustion engine is a huge, binding system. It’s big, heavy, full of components that have to stay in a precise sequence: clutch, gearbox, differential, radiator, cooling system, antifreeze in the winter. Every component takes up space, sets geometric limits, forcing the designer to build the bodywork around something given. Creative freedom is what remains after all these obligations have been met. An electric motor is small. The batteries can be placed wherever you want — in a central tunnel, like I did with the Sensiva, without disturbing the front or the rear seats. Each of the wheels can have its own motor, eliminating the drive shaft and the differential. The shape of the car can follow the logics of aerodynamics and aesthetics without having to compromise on the mechanics.”

If the designer recognises the freedom offered by electrics, what does the engineer think?

“I know this is a sensitive topic in Italy. There is a huge tradition of component manufacturers, factories that have supplied parts for combustion engines to the Italian and European car industry for decades. The transition to electric vehicles affects those factories, those families, those communities. It’s not a technical problem, but a real and serious economic and social problem. But it would be dishonest to use it to say that the electric motor is not the future. It is. In northern Europe over half the cars sold are electric. The problem is not the technology. The problem is how to manage the transition as painlessly as possible, thinking for example how to convert component manufacturers without losing their know-how.”

Fioravanti, what is your relationship with cars?

“I love cars because they’re made of everything and nothing. It’s a matter of geometry, air, function, chemistry, physics, history, economics and desire. It’s the nights spent as a twelve-year-old in a stolen 600, the championships won, the hours spent in with the models in the wind tunnel, the conversations with Enzo Ferrari, the drawings on paper that become metal that becomes speed.

It is my grandfather on the terrace in Castelletto, with the whole of Genoa below, who looks at me and says, “Do what you want, follow your passion”.” I was very young. At the time, I didn't know that that phrase was a project.”