REFLECTED BEAUTY

There is a thread that connects the Alfa Romeo Giulia Spider, Alfa Romeo Duetto, Lancia Flavia, Ferrari 250GT, Ferrari 275 GTB, Ferrari 308, Ferrari Dino, Ferrari Testarossa, and Cisitalia 202 GT. Considered by many to be the most beautiful cars ever made, they (and countless others) all sprang from the pens of the legendary Italian design house Pininfarina. A pair of electric hypercars dubbed “the Twins” and named Anniversario and Reversario—the result of a collaboration between a local collector and Automobili Pininfarina Chief Designer, Dave Amantea—are destined to find a place on this vaunted list.

Amantea vividly recalls his first encounter with Pininfarina. When he was 8, Amantea’s father took him to a car show in Turin, Italy where he got to sit in a Ferrari Testarossa and turn over the engine.

“When I got out, I noticed on the body there was a badge that read Pininfarina,” Amantea recalls. “I asked my father what that meant, and he said ‘Well, it’s Ferrari, but it’s designed by Pininfarina.’ From that moment, I was addicted to anything that Pininfarina was doing and instantly knew I wanted to be a car designer.”

Now, through a 20-year career evolution that Amantea attributes to hard work and a degree of luck, he leads the design team at Automobili Pininfarina. His leadership came at a unique point in the company’s history as it had begun selling directly to the consumer and for the first time placed its emblem on the front of the car.

In 2018, Automobili Pininfarina was established to realize founder Battista “Pinin” Farina’s dream of creating a range of solely-badged Pininfarina cars, starting with Battista hyper GT. The Battista embodied the great tradition of Pininfarina design but also embraced the future. In a bold move amid a history of legendary automobiles with growling V engines, the car would be electric. It would also be the fastest Italian road car ever made, with 1,900bhp and a zero-to-sixty time of under two seconds. In 2021, the car won the coveted Design Award at the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este in Lake Como and stole the hearts of automotive design aficionados worldwide. It was the first time an EV had achieved such a feat.

Buying a car from Automobili Pininfarina is, not surprisingly, a unique experience. Purchasers can become directly involved in the design process. “We treat our customers as friends,” says Amantea. “We invite them to eat a lot of food and drink a lot of wine. We talk about what they like. We become friends. And by becoming friends, it’s an experience and we create emotion.”

In 2023, a local collector reached out to Pininfarina Chicago to order the last Anniversario edition Battista. The buyer’s fascination with the concept of yin and yang provided the spark that led to the creation of the Reversario—and the purchase of a second car to make the pair.

“By simply inverting the color of the Anniversario edition, we found out that the cars looked different—the stance was different, the cabin looked much more forward because the white doesn’t show you the body side. It looks like a shark that is basically peering in the water.”

“In the meantime,” Amantea continues, growing more and more animated. “The white, when you see from the side and the back, is so peaceful.” It was all the proof of concept they needed, and the design process moved into overdrive as they refined all the details.

Amantea describes the harmony in the mirror image designs as spellbinding. “It’s arrogant, but it’s also harmonious,” he says. “We say that this is the irreverent luxury that Automobili Pininfarina represents. It’s a little bit Piedmontese: It’s not opulent, it’s elegance that’s shown off in a fresh and different way.”

The Reversario is the “unicorn” in the Battista collection, according to Amantea. “How many twins [like this] exist? One. Who created the story? It’s not the company. It’s the company together with the customer that created the story.”

It’s rare to find examples of design companies that have sparked passion for nearly a century. When asked what makes Pininfarina so successful through generations, Amantea becomes emotional.

“The application of Italian design is not the perfect execution of a millimeter gap. It’s not that. It’s exactly like a human being, who has defects and these defects are what make you fall in love. They are the things that make us different. It’s the beauty of imperfection,” he observes.

As Amantea is keen to note, Automobili Pininfarina is just getting started. There is the B95 hyper Barchetta, the Battista and B95 Dark Knight and Gotham cars inspired by the Wayne Enterprise partnership, the PURA Vision luxury utility concept vehicle, and more announcements to come at Monterey Car Week this month. Being designers, the team is constantly cooking up new concepts.

“Pininfarina has a big bag full of ingredients, and we just open it and pick them. The ingredients are the heritage, and our goal is to cook something differently.”

For more information, visit automobili-pininfarina.com and apf-chicago.com.