Ferrari fashionistas worldwide weep today: Pininfarina dies.

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Ferrari fashionistas worldwide weep today as one of the last men who made the marque is found mortal. Sergio Pininfarina died at the age of 85 in his home in Turin. He is of course remembered as one of Italy’s greatest draughtsmen responsible for umpteen vehicles, many of these of the desirable sort. But not all. The real oddballs come from Sergio’s early days. How about a Pininfarina Zündapp, a Pininfarina DKW or a Pininfarina Volkswagen Beetle? Oh yes. There is a bit of an urban legend of Pininfarina returning a job to Volkswagen to improve the Beetle, commenting: “It's beautiful as it is: why do you want to change it?”. That story even made it to an American tv advert in 1958, starring Nuccio Bertone. Great tale but it’s not true. In fact, Pininfarina did have a take on the Beetle in 1952, internally dubbed by VW as project ‘EA41’. The car he came up with looked like a scaled down Lancia B20 that arrived at around the same time. Sergio Pininfarina was given the Ferrari account by his father in 1952 and the rest is history. (text: Jeroen Booij)

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