--- title: "What Are Your Favorite Marcello Gandini Car Designs? (Here’s the Big List)" date: "2024-03-14" modified: "2024-03-14" authors: - name: "Andrew P. Collins" job_title: "Executive Editor" link: "https://www.thedrive.com/authors/andrew-p-collins" url: "https://www.thedrive.com/news/what-are-your-favorite-marcello-gandini-car-designs-heres-the-big-list" categories: - "Culture" - "News" - "QOTD" --- # What Are Your Favorite Marcello Gandini Car Designs? (Here’s the Big List) ![]() *\Lamborghini\* Italian car designer Marcello Gandini [passed away yesterday]() (March 13, 2024) at age 85. He leaves behind a mind-bogglingly deep catalog of contributions to automotive aesthetics. There's no more fitting discussion for today's question post than this: What are your favorite Marcello Gandini car designs? I had to pluralize this prompt from "what's your favorite" to "*favorites*." While trying to expand my appreciation for Gandidi's work, I realized he touched far more car designs than even what I thought were the deep cuts. For me, the Lamborghini Diablo is a total basic-boy choice but I can't deny it's one of my faves. That was truly the supercar of my childhood and I will always love looking at those cars. But among the slightly lesser-known items, I think I have to call out the [Alfa Romeo Navajo]()—a truly bonkers-looking space car that looks right out of the original Star Wars movie. If you're looking for a quick but neat contextualization of Gandini's big designs, this video from LA's Petersen Museum is a nice little piece: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUgQfCqAAog ## Marcello Gandini’s Car Designs and Contributions The most complete-looking list of Gandini's production and concept car designs was on Wikipedia. I augmented the editable encyclopedia's rundown and looked into the models that I hadn't heard of. But I still have a feeling I might be missing a few. Interestingly, his obituary in the Italian publication *[La Repubblica]()* mentions he "collaborated as an independent designer with car manufacturers such as Renault, Nissan, Toyota \[and\] Subaru" (translated from Italian) but I couldn't readily find any other references to his work with those last two. Not all cars on this list were the sole product of Gandini, of course. But here are the big ones he had his hands in. I strongly recommend you Google the ones you don't know about—they're all pretty wild. - Alfa Romeo Montreal - Alfa Romeo 33 Carabo - Alfa Romeo Navajo - Audi 50 - Autobianchi A112, and Runabout - Bertone Pirana - Bugatti EB 110 - BMW 5 Series (E12, first gen) - Citroën BX - Citroën GS Camargue - Cizeta-Moroder V16T - De Tomaso Biguà concept (which became the Qvale Mangusta) - De Tomaso Pantera SI - De Tomaso Pantera Prossima Generazione - Dino/Ferrari 308 GT4 - Ferrari Rainbow - Fiat Dino Coupé - Fiat 132 - Fiat X1/9 - Iso Lele - Iso Grifo 90 - Iso Grifo 96 - Jaguar Ascot - Lamborghini Bravo - Lamborghini Countach - Lamborghini P140 - Lamborghini Diablo - Lamborghini P147 Acosta - Lamborghini Espada - Lamborghini Jarama - Lamborghini Miura - Lamborghini Urraco - Lamborghini Marzal - Lancia Stratos Zero - Lancia Stratos - Lancia Sibilo - Maserati Khamsin - Maserati Ghibli II - Maserati Quattroporte (II and IV generations) - Maserati Shamal - Maserati Chubasco - Maserati Biturbo variants - Nissan AP-X - NSU Trapeze - Perodua Kancil - Qvale Mangusta - Reliant FW11 - Renault 5 Turbo - Renault 5 Supercinq - Renault Magnum - TaMo Racemo - Stola S81 Stratos - Stola S86 Diamante - Volkswagen Polo (Mk1, first gen) - Volvo Tundra Gandini was also known to have dabbled in architectural and interior designs, having supposedly worked on a nightclub interior, among other things. At the time of his passing, it's said that he was still at work and planning to contribute to a training program at a car museum in Doha, Qatar. ## Author As Executive Editor, Andrew touches everything on the site from daily news coverage to feature stories, sponsored content, product reviews, road testing vehicles, ecommerce, and more. He's held pretty much every role there is to have at an automotive news site and has been with The Drive's publisher Recurrent since 2020. Andrew's a lifetime gearhead and longtime writer with a particularly strong penchant for road trips, off-road adventures, and archaic vehicles. His passions outside of the automotive world include skiing, obsolete video games, and his dog Bramble who occationally helps review cars. ### Author social links [Instagram]() [LinkedIn]()