Legendary car designer Giugiaro quits company that bears his name Audi takes full control of firm Luca Ciferri/Automotive News
July 2, 2015
Legendary car designer Giorgetto Giugiaro has left the styling and engineering company he built, and which still bears his name.
The move comes roughly five years after Giugiaro, 76, sold a 90.1 percent stake in Italdesign Giugiaro SpA to Volkswagen Group's Audi, retaining 9.9 percent for himself and his son, Fabrizio, 50. That remaining stake was sold to Audi on Sunday, June 28.
The man is obviously a legend. He has nothing left to prove (though his son arguably does. He's not the designer his father was/is).
Lots of things to read between the lines here --- With endless speculation over what could be the private, personal rationale for selling his last 10% stake and walking away from the company he built.
Supposedly Piech and Giugiaro were/are friends, which was what allowed the Porsche scion to convince the designer to sell the majority of his company to VAG.
If Piech is now gone, I wonder if he either convinced Giugiaro to leave as well (some kind of passive-aggressive protest?) or if whatever internal arrangement was agreed to under Piech's watch (regarding design, independence, etc) has now evaporated?
Of course, you could also speculate that maybe Giugiaro felt stifled/limited working under the Germans and decided to walk away altogether. It's got to be hard to have your own firm, and all the freedom that goes with it, for the better part of 60 years and then have "bosses" mandating a new direction for your company.
Regardless of the reasons, I wonder what is next for the Maestro? I can't imagine he'd stop creating new designs, despite his age.
My Alfasud was designed by him. The rear of that was terrific. the car was 391cm long but had rear legroom of 18-40cm back of front seat to front of rear cushion). Because of the rear seat shape a person around 180cm could sit quite comfortably in the back. Not in the league of that Caddy though!
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