Looking ahead to the 2012 Geneva Motor Show this March, Italian coach builder Pininfarina has officially unveiled the first teaser image of their latest ground-breaking creation: the Cambiano.
As is the case with a lot of teasers coming out these days for Geneva, Pininfarina is keeping a closed lid on any information surrounding the Cambiano, opting only for a few descriptive sentences to kick-start our imaginations into complete overdrive.
In the case of this intriguing concept, Pininfarina has bared this nugget of information describing the car: "it is an elegant and refined sport sedan, conceived with great attention to the environment, both as to the engine and as to the materials’ choice."
Reading between the lines, it appears that the car could be some sort of hybrid sports car that carries the company’s distinctive and provocative styling. Consider us intrigued. As far as the name of choice is concerned, Pininfarina chose Cambiano as a tribute to the city hosting the Pininfarina Group’s headquarters. It’s also no coincidence that the car is being prepared as a celebratory model of sorts to honor of the 30th anniversary of the Styling Center and the 10th anniversary of the Engineering Center, two branches of Pininfarina that have played critical roles in the design and build of a lot of their ultra-exclusive exotics.
We’ll have more info surrounding the Cambiano in the weeks and days leading up to the Geneva Motor Show. For now, you can ogle over the teaser image of the car, which is what we’ve been doing for some time now.
UPDATE 01/13/2012: Pininfarina has unveiled the second teaser for their Cambiano concept; an image that reveals part of the side of the vehicle. It looks as though the Cambiano will have a short bonnet and a set of large alloy wheels. There also seems to be no air inlets, leading us to believe this could be a full-electric vehicle.
UPDATE 01/19/2012: We are getting one step closer to the official opening of the Geneva Motor Show and Pininfarina is offering us a new teaser image of their Cambiano concept. This was shows off the intricate detailing of the roof. Enjoy!
UPDATE 02/06/2012: Pininfarina is continuing its teaser session for the Cambiano concept with a new video of the car set to be released at the Geneva Motor Show. Enjoy!
While Pininfarina is busy designing models for Ferrari, concept designer Peter Norris is taking a break from his job in the video games and entertainment industry to design a future luxury sports car concept that is "clean, unfussy, elegant and fast." These attributes led him to the Pininfarina Coupe Concept, a front engined model combined with a rear wheel drive system.
Norris’ design inspiration for the Pininfarina Coupe Concept came from the love of his very own Fiat Coupe 16v Turbo with some Ferrari lines thrown in to polish it over. The Pininfarina Coupe’s look is characterized by the ultra low roofline and the accentuated front and rear fenders. The sleek profile is exaggerated further with large wheels that visually shorten the height of the sports car. At the back of the Pininfarina are a set of C-shaped LED taillights.
When talking about his concept, Peter Norris said: "much of my work is focused strongly on science fiction and the distant future, but with this project I wanted to create an elegant and unfussy design with classic lines that could be on the road today."
“The Pininfarina styling inside as much as outside just oozes with Italian flair and really was, and still is different to anything else on the road. Some people have referred to it as a “baby Ferrari”.
Somehow we don’t see a luxury sports car like this toting around the 190 HP 2.0L 16V Turbo engine as seen on the Fiat Coupe, but since the Pininfarina Coupe Concept was also inspired by Ferrari, we’d love to see something along the lines of the 458 Italia’s 570 HP 4,499 cc V8 engine. Not a likely scenario, but we can dream.
Pininfarina is celebrating their 80th anniversary with the unveiling of the Nido EV prototype - an update version of the 2004 Nido. The Nido EV is an electric car conceived, designed, and built entirely by the Pininfarina Style and Engineering Centre of Cambiano (Turin). This vehicle is the first running prototype of the “Nido Development Programme” and reinforces their direction of providing a safer, more sustainable vehicle that will populate our city’s streets.
The Nido EV prototype uses a 30 kilowatt permanent magnet electric motor powered by a Zebra Z5 Ni-NaCl battery, which guarantees very high levels of safety and reliability. When fully charged, it has a range of 140 km and a top speed of 120 km/h (limited electronically), and accelerates 0-60 km/h in 6.7 seconds.
The Pininfarina Nido EV is a small urban 2-seater that supplies the framework for larger vehicles to be built on its platform. No word has been given on when this vehicle will see production, but we think that it will only be a matter of time before we see these vehicles clustered on our city streets.
Press release after the jump.
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Pininfarina is celebrating its 80th anniversary with the unveiling of the 2uettottanta concept today at the Geneva Motor Show. The concept’s name makes reference to both the legendary Duetto, but also the years of activity at Pininfarina. The concept is also an homage to the Alfa Romeo’s centenary.
The 2uettottanta is a 2-seater spider, featuring a clean and elegant design and powered by a 1750 cc turbo engine positioned longitudinally, an obvious reference to the "1750 Veloce" of 1968. The concept’s exterior red paint is also inspired by the typical Alfa Romeo paintwork.
The 2uettottanta’s front is inspired by Alfa Romeo models and features a shield made of aluminum and incorporating floating horizontal flaps, two triangular lateral air intakes, front headlights with the latest LED technologies and a strip of carbon in the lower part of the front that acts as an air splitter.
On the interior, the dashboard has a driver-oriented configuration with an innovative approach to the classical circular Alfa Romeo “tubes” that contain the instruments. There is also a a modern interpretation of the Duetto’s perforated three-spoke wheel, with the addition of a shift paddle for sequential control of the dual-clutch gearbox.
Press release after the jump.
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The design house Pininfarina is responsible for some of the most beautiful four wheeled creations throughout the history of the automobile; however the Italian design studio has also been an innovative force, constantly adapting to the needs of the day in order to ensure the continuation of personal transportation. One thing that any Italian based manufacturing facility is known for is an outright sense of style and the ability to instill beauty into everything they do. That is why Pininfarina has just unveiled their latest concept, the Nido, an attractive, small and safe vehicle geared at replacing densely populated urban environments with a low emissions vehicle that was designed from day one to not only look good but provide peace of mind to the occupants inside.
In Italian, the word Nido means nest, however we see the compact city car concept as what is usually being safeguarded in a nest, eggs. Some of the design sketches show the early concept as being a round egg shaped vehicle with the passengers occupying a yellowish yolk like protected space in the middle. So the Nido is a 21st century attempt to solve the age-old high school science project, how to keep the insides intact upon impact. Pininfarina’s engineers have designed the Nido with a separate passenger compartment built inside the concept’s frame and body that is connected to the outer shell with energy absorbing cushions placed around the passenger’s compartment. The bright orange polymer cushions would act like springs upon impact, absorbing the forces exerted by the instant deceleration, however unlike energy storing metal coils that would spring back returning all that pressure onto the passengers, a cushion simply acts like an oversized pillow in a briefcase.
Pininfarina knows that no matter how great a car is, it has no chance at being remembered if it is unattractive. So that is why the designers worked with the safety focused engineers from the beginning to create the Nido city car concept. The Nido follows the traditional rules of automobile styling rules with four wheels, two headlights and a large grill in the middle of the front bumper that almost looks back at you. One place where the Nido concept brakes from ordinary cars is the lack of a hood; this begs the question, what is going to power the compact city car and which wheels will be driven? The most likely answer is that similarly to the Smart and Nano, the power plant will be placed behind the two passengers, however the Pininfarina Nido’s lightweight construction would make it an ideal candidate to be a battery electric vehicle.
Press release after the jump.
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