As Pininfarina celebrates 50 years of its famous wind tunnel Car Design News highlights ten of its best designs shaped by aero tech
Pininfarina has been synonymous with aerodynamic designs since its earliest days. For example, the 1936 Lancia Aprilia Aerodynamica Coupé, which was a racing Berlinetta featuring smooth bodysides and four covered wheels and had a drag co-efficient (Cd) of 0.40. This figure was attained, says Antoine Prunet in his book Pininfarina Art & Industry 1930-2000 by “an intuitive approach without the possibility of any scientific control of the design process”.
Or the legendary 1947 Cisitalia 202 that found its way into the New York Museum of Modern Art and, when measured in the Pininfarina wind tunnel decades later, recorded a 0.37 Cd, better than many designs created much later. Founder Battista ‘Pinin’ Farina was influenced by nature and wanted his cars to share some of that beauty, as he is quoted: “Going to the mountains in winter I saw how the wind had streamlined the snow at the side of the road, carving out curved or sharp shapes at the edges. The wind gives shape to trees. I wanted to copy those lines…”
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