From the Car Design Review 5 yearbook: “We take it as our role to be influential and innovative.”
Gandini used to say something very important, and I always repeat it to my designers: when you make a design, put everything together, all your ideas; you combine them. Once you have put everything together, delete everything that is not necessary; and once you have deleted everything that is not necessary, you delete one more thing.
You can see this in Neo, which was literally influenced by the Shanghai Tower: you have the twist or the high line that goes forward, and two lines in waves that combine together. All our show cars have in common that they are very sensual cars in the sense that their shape is simple, supple and soft, with a gentle basic volume, like a human. But at the same time, to complement that softness, very sharp lines and divisions going through by contrast: this transition of soft and sharp, the sharp against the curve.
The most influential piece of design that has shaped the Icona cars is probably the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird, the fastest aeroplane in the world: if you look at its shape, the delta and the extrusion, and the section a triangle, the most simple shape. The transitions from positive to negative are very soft, very sweet, but the lines are still extremely sharp. You will also find this in architecture in the works of Zaha Hadid…
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