Rolls Royce Camargue - 1969

 

 

 

Production

 

This Rolls-Royce was the only model of the british company, in all its history, to have been designed entirely by an Italian,me , at that time employee at Pininfarina .

I feel a little uncomfortable in describing the various stages of the project not so much for the type of the car and the personality of the client, but for the ways, times and methods in which it took place that were incredible.

The first drawings were carried out at the end of 1969, in 1970 a complete car ,Corniche model ,arrived at the workshop. there were no construction or dimensional designs of any kind, but only a list of functions,tools and general features to be applied to the future model.

The car was dismantled, and dissected, the underbody frame was recovered, the same procedure for usable parts and subgroups, I personally took over the various measurements of the footprint and I set to work : I would like to point out that the whole project until the realization of the prototype lasted no more than three months.Of this car I designed,with the moral help of Mr. Franco Martinengo,then director of the CentroStile ,everything like body, interior,steering wheel,dashboard , instruments,interior lights,wheel cups,fanals and more,all on a scale 1-1.

Speaking of the style with the very tense and marked lines quite unusual in comparison to the sisters of the brand, I tried not to distort the personality beyond measure.

I must confess that in the technical graph next to it was the design of the Fiat 130 Coupé and a mutual osmosis?of lines is evident even if it is a very different type of car,probably a small conditioning there was indeed.

The most difficult part was the interpretation of the functions of the instruments and equipment required, everything was in inches, the functions extremely complex and unusual for us, no one knew English or even technical terms and of course no one wanted to make the commitment beyond measure; with obstinacy I performed the first and only figurines made with the technique of "collage" in both Europe and USA version as well as two versions of scale 1-1 of the cockpit with instruments placed alternately in horizontal and vertical.

As the project continued, I made a 1-4 scale construction design from which a parallel model was made, there was not the slightest hitch, there was no change, no second thoughts and the prototype was executed extremely quickly!

The car was the most expensive of the price list, about 250,000 euros at the time, and was the first model to be equipped with the automatic air conditioner and was impressive, for me it was a great satisfaction and as always a great experience, unique and unrepeatable .

The Camargue was unveiled in 1974 and built in 530 units.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You want a print of the most representative original sketches of the Rolls Royce Camargue