Marcello Gandini Is Best Known For His Beautiful Sports Cars But He Had A Gift For Small Cars Too

I’m sure you’ve heard by now that legendary car designer Marcello Gandini has died at the age of 85. Gandini is best known for the exotic, glamorous cars he designed, the sorts of machines that, in poster form, have graced so many bedrooms (and still do, in some cases): Lamborghinis Countach, Miura, Espada, Urraco, and more; the Lancia Stratos, Maserati Khasmin, Iso Grifo, the BMW 5-Series, Ferrari Dino 308 GT4, so so many stunning, feel-the-awe-in-your-gut sort of cars. They’re legends. But what I find most incredible about Gandini was that, in addition to these expensive, glorious chariots, he also had a remarkable gift for making small, cheap, accessible cars look great, full of style and grace and sleek dignity. That, in so many ways, is the harder challenge, so that’s what I’d like to focus on as we look back on Gandini – the humbler side.

I’m pretty sure the Muira and Countach and all the others are getting plenty of attention. They always do, and it’s not hard to see why. I mean, even I can’t help it, I’m going to have to include some pictures of these cars.

The man came up with the scissor door, for fudge’s sake; that’s the very essence of a supercar, right there.

But let’s be honest here: all these cars are way too good for the likes of me. I need to allow myself to plummet downmarket, but, happily, Gandini is down there as well, next to a big mattress he dragged out to cushion our fall into the bottom end of the market, because good design needs to thrive there, too. Let’s look at some examples of this.

Innocenti Mini 90/120

Innocenti was an Italian carmaker who built BMC Minis under license, from 1965 to 1975, and while early ones were built from CKD (completely knocked-down) kits, later everything was produced independently, and the quality was said to be better than the British-built Minis. In 1974, an all-new design for the same Mini mechanicals was unveiled, styled by Gandini while he was working at Bertone; this was the Mini 90/120.

The project actually started out as a way for the Mini to be more competitive with newer small cars like the Renault 5, Fiat 127, or the Autobianchi A112 (the Renault and Autobianchi will show up again here, by the way) all of which had a more modern design than the Mini, and all featured much more practical hatchbacks compared to the Mini’s flip-down trunk lid.

BMC contacted Michelotti and Bertone to come up with styling proposals, and while the project never moved ahead in Britain, after British Leyland effectively took over Innocenti in 1972, the project moved ahead under Innocenti’s brand, with Gandini’s proposal being chosen.

Under the skin, the Mini 90/120 was pure old-school Mini, save for moving the radiator to a more expected location in front of the engine. But the rest of the design was so clean and fresh looking, you’d never guess it was all based on a car from 1959 underneath.

The new design had a real hatchback, finally, and while it perhaps didn’t manage to beat the original Mini on interior packaging, it was a much crisper and airier design, and managed to do this while establishing its own charm and visual identity. It’s a great example of a tiny car done right.

Autobianchi A112

I told you we’d be back to the Autobianchi; Gandini had such a knack for stylish small cars that he ended up designing cars that would compete with one another, like this one. The A112 came out in 1969, starting life as a scaled-down variant of the Fiat 128, at least mechanically, but given its own highly distinct look by Gandini.

The A112 was a modern, FWD, three-door small hatchback, and Gandini managed to give the car a front end that harkened back just a bit to earlier designs without feeling cloyingly retro or dated. The little car wasn’t just a box; it had hips, it had a little butt there, but it all just worked, and the end result was something that felt sporty and plucky, not some anonymous econobox. Young women proved to be a large segment of the A112’s market, too, reaching up to 35% of buyers by 1984.

These are charming as hell.

Audi 50/Volkswagen Polo

When Volkswagen bought out NSU in 1969, part of that goal was to introduce a whole new approach to small cars, moving away from the rear-engine/RWD formula that had brought them so far, and moving to a more modern front-engine/FWD approach. NSU had already started that process, moving from the rear-engined Prinz to the rotary-engined Ro80 and the more conventional K70, and were looking to replace their smaller cars as well.

NSU was folded into Audi when VW bought them, and the replace-the-Prinz project became the Audi/NSU K50, a small, transverse-engined FWD car. The styling was handed over to Bertone, specifically Gandini (though finalized by Claus Luthe of Audi), which is interesting since VW had reached out to Giorgetto Giugiaro of Italdesign to style the Golf, VW’s main new FWD car.

Gandini’s Audi 50 (rebadged six weeks after its introduction as the VW Polo as well) seems initially quite similar to the Italdesign Golf, until you really start looking at it, which is when you realize what a master Gandini really is.

Yes, it’s crisp and rectilinear like the Golf, but it’s also somehow leaner, hungrier-looking, emphasized by that slight forward rake of the front grille, adding just a touch of rangy aggression to the car. It’s all order and math, but there’s a bit of feral energy under that taut surface, which is why I think it’s so appealing. Plus, there’s the unexpected addition of the round fresh-air exhaust vent on the C-pillar that adds a nice bit of contrasting visual interest. It’s a lean body of straight lines punctuated with the perfect circles of wheels, headlights, and those vents. Plus, that little upward curve of that trim line at the rear– it’s unexpected, but somehow it works.

Renault Supercinq

What I like about the Supercinq is that it shows that Gandini was able to make effective designs that didn’t necessarily originate with him. While I can’t speak to Gandini’s ego, I think the fact this exists says something about his ability to be at least a bit humble, at times. The original Renault 5 was designed by Michel Boué (allegedly in his spare time?) and was something of an automotive design icon of its own. I think it pioneered the use of the lower bumper edges finishing the wheel arches, for example, something still commonly seen today.

So when it came time to update the look of the car in 1984, the idea of going to the man who designed the Countach must have seemed a bit absurd. But I think it says good things about Gandini that he did it, and did it with such respect for the original design.

The new Renault 5, the Supercinq, manages to retain all of the crucial details of the original design but updates them into a modern (well, 80s modern) design vocabulary with such grace that you’d think that’s how it was always intended. The overall look of the car is smoothed out, feels more like a unified whole; the car feels more open and airy, details flow and fit into the lines of the body with more ease and yet still retain the character of the original.

This is a difficult task to pull off well, and Gandini pulled it off beautifully.

Citroën BX

The BX was more of a larger family car than the superminis I’ve been talking about to this point, but it was hardly an exotic, and I just really like the design. Citroën is one of the all-time most idiosyncratic automakers, which sets some design expectations above and beyond that of most projects. The project was started in 1984, after the merger of Citroën and Peugeot, and was based on the Peugeot 405 platform. Since it was to be a Citroën, it had to get the Citroën hallmark hydropneumatic suspension, and had to feel like a Citroën, which was Gandini’s job.

The car needed to feel modern and mainstream enough for a respectable family car, but also have that Citroën je ne sais quoi, a pretty good challenge. Gandini managed it by making a long, angular, wedgy five-door hatch, with proportions that felt like they hearkened back to the legendary DS, and adding details like the skirted rear wheel and grille-less front end that somehow unmistakably marked the car as a Citroën.

It looked spaceshippy, like the future, parked in your driveway. The blacked-out section of that C-pillar, over that line of vents, the angles and chamfers, it all just worked together to feel like the best of 80s tech-optimism. This as a family car is an exciting thing, and I suspect many kids were excited to see their family spaceship come gliding up to pick them up from Brie Camp or wherever French people sent their kids back then.

Gandini was an auto design legend, and it’s great to see all the recognition he’s been getting for his remarkable work. I just want to be sure we take a moment to remember the incredible job he did for people who couldn’t have Ferraris or Lamborghinis, and properly regard Gandini’s regular cars as outstanding designs equal to his far more famous exotics. Those everyday machines are masterpieces in their own right – and there’s a hell of a lot more of them around.

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