Giovanni Michelotti - Styling Genius

Giovanni Michelotti was born in Turin in 1921 and began his working life at Stabilimenti Farina, the famous Turin-based styling house, in 1937 There was a motoring tradition in the Michelotti family, for his father was a machining expert who worked for more than forty years in the industry, Giovanni was a sharp-featured and wiry little man with boundless energy and great ambition, who always worked very fast, and rarely refused a new commission. Eventually, he left Farina to set up as an independent stylist in 1949, soon opening the tenth floor studio in Turin which was later to become famous. Over the years he picked up styling commissions for Vignale, Bertone, Allemano, Ghia and Balbo, but it was through a British businessman, Raymond Flower, that he was introduced to Harry Webster at Standard-Triumph. Once he had demonstrated how rapidly and expertly he could turn ideas into completely-detailed schemes, Standard-Triumph gave him a longterm retainer, which he held until the 1970s. Michelotti's studio styled cars like the Vignale Vanguard, the Herald/Vitesse models, the TR4, the Spitfire/GT6, the 2000, the 1300/Toledo/1500/Dolomite family, and the Stag - all for the Triumph factory, At the same time he found time to tackle cars like the BMW 700 and the 1500/1800, the Daf 44/55, the Hino Contessa, the Vignale-built Triumph Italia, along with truck cabs for Leyland, secret work for several other manufacturers and a number of one-off styles for Ferraris and Maseratis, His influence over Triumph shapes fell away in the 1970s as the company gradually disappeared into the maw of British Leyland. He died in 1980 with his talents undiminished; he was only fifty-nine.

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