The History of Pininfarina: From Turin Coachworks to Design House

Pininfarina at a glance

Battista Farina and the 1930 coachworks

Battista Farina, known since childhood as "Pinin" (the little one), learned his trade in his elder brother's coachbuilding shop in Turin. In 1928 he decided to work under his own name, and on 22 May 1930 the papers for Carrozzeria Pinin Farina were filed, with the workshop at Corso Trapani 107. The company's own history uses 1930 as the founding year, and it celebrated its 90th anniversary in 2020.

The new firm built bodies one at a time or in very small series on chassis supplied by the makers. The first official Pinin Farina special was a Lancia Dilambda in 1931. An Alfa Romeo 8C 2300 followed in 1933 and a 6C 2300 B cabriolet in 1934. Before the war the workshop also clothed Hispano-Suiza, Isotta Fraschini, Cadillac, Rolls-Royce and Fiat chassis.

The company stayed a small specialist until the 1950s, building bodies to order rather than in series.

The Cisitalia 202: the car in a museum

The design that made the name came straight after the war. At the end of 1945 the team drew the Cisitalia 202 coupé, a small car on Fiat parts with a low bonnet, fared-in headlamps and wings that flowed into the body. Cisitalia built it from 1947 to 1952, only 170 coupés in all.

Its influence was far greater than its numbers. In 1951 the Museum of Modern Art in New York included it in the exhibition "Eight Automobiles", which presented cars as works of design. Its smooth, uninterrupted flank became a template for the sports cars of the following decade.

Pinin Farina in America: Nash and the 1950s

The American link started with Nash. In 1952 Pinin Farina styled the Nash Ambassador and Statesman, and from 1952 to 1954 the Nash-Healey sports car used bodies built in Turin. Nash advertised the Italian name, and many American buyers learned the word "Pinin Farina" from those advertisements.

The same year, 1951, brought a meeting in Tortona with Enzo Ferrari. From that handshake grew the longest partnership in the industry: Pinin Farina, later Pininfarina, drew most road Ferraris for six decades, including the 250, 275, 330, 365, 308/328 and 288 GTO families. Early results included the berlinettas of the Ferrari 375 MM, and the long relationship is described in our history of Ferrari. Other Italian work of the period included racing bodies such as the Lancia D24 spider.

Grugliasco and the industrial years

In 1954–1955 the company bought land in Grugliasco, on the western edge of Turin, and the new factory opened in 1958 with nearly 1,000 employees. In 1961 Battista handed control to his son Sergio and his son-in-law Renzo Carli, and the family surname officially became Pininfarina. Sergio's own story and the one-off Ferrari named after him are covered in our page on the Ferrari Sergio.

Grugliasco did not only design cars; it built them for other makers, usually the open and coupé versions that big plants found awkward to produce.

Two research projects changed the way cars were developed in Italy. The Studies and Research Centre opened at Grugliasco in 1966, and a full-scale wind tunnel, started the same year, was completed in 1972. Pininfarina could now test real cars in moving air instead of models.

The Allanté contract, agreed with General Motors in 1983, was the most unusual. GM flew parts to Turin, and the finished bodies were flown back to Detroit for final assembly. By our calculation the Fiat 124 Sport Spider alone accounts for about 67 % of the 296,164 cars in this table. The Allanté is the only contract in it that crossed the Atlantic by air, and it averaged about 2,700 cars a year over eight seasons.

Designs beyond cars

From the 1980s Pininfarina spread into industrial design. It shaped high-speed trains, trams and yachts; the Italian ETR 500 trainset, built from 1987 to 2000, is one of the best-known examples.

Crisis, the end of car building and Mahindra

The 2000s were the hardest decade. Andrea Pininfarina, Sergio's son, took over in 2001 and expanded production. Employment peaked at 2,768 in 2006, but losses reached 115 million euros by the end of 2007. By the end of November 2008 debts stood at 598 million euros, 555 million of them under a restructuring agreement. Andrea died in 2008, and his younger brother Paolo became chief executive.

The contract-building business could not be saved. The San Giorgio plant stopped in November 2010, and on 10 December 2011 Pininfarina announced the end of all mass car production. Employment fell to 821 in 2012. Ferrari, the most important client, moved design in-house the same year; the F12berlinetta was the last production Ferrari with a Pininfarina badge.

On 14 December 2015 the Mahindra Group bought 76.06 % of Pininfarina S.p.A. for about 168 million euros. The family kept a link through Paolo Pininfarina, who stayed at the head of the company until his death in April 2024.

Automobili Pininfarina and the Battista

Mahindra created Automobili Pininfarina in 2018 as a separate car brand, finally giving Battista Farina's name to a car of its own. In November 2018 it invested more than 20 million euros in the design company's services. The first model, the electric Battista hypercar, was announced in 2019 with about 1,400 kW (1,900 hp) and a planned run of 150 cars. The name on the badge is the founder's own: the car is called simply Battista.

Pininfarina timeline

Our verdict: which Pininfarina cars to collect

Most Pininfarina-bodied cars carry a small "f" badge on the flank. For collectors, our verdict is simple: the most accessible pieces of the company's history are its production cars. The Fiat 124 Sport Spider and the Alfa Romeo Duetto are plentiful, simple and well supported. The Peugeot 404 cabriolet and the Cadillac Allanté are rarer but still affordable. Early Ferraris and the Cisitalia are museum-level cars. Pininfarina also styled cheaper cars outside Italy, such as the Chinese Hafei Brio, and every brand it worked for can be browsed in the car catalogue. Two of its designs can be set side by side with the comparison tool, and its most famous Ferraris appear in our rankings.