1980 Ferrari Pinin Concept to be sold by RM Auctions - AllCarIndex
RM Auctions has released the following press release:
Chassis No.
99788
Estimate:
£480,000-£550,000
AUCTION DATE:
To be auctioned on
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
360 bhp, 4,942 cc double overhead camshaft with four valves per cylinder, horizontally-opposed 12-cylinder engine with Weber carburettors, five-speed manual transmission, double wishbone with coil spring suspension front and rear, and four-wheel vented disc brakes. Wheelbase: 2,745 mm
The 1980 Turin Motor Show marked the 50th anniversary of Pininfarina, and rumours abounded that the celebrated company was going to unveil a unique concept car for Ferrari. To great fanfare the first ever four-door Ferrari was duly unveiled. Sergio Pininfarina, now head of the legendary design firm, named the car in honour of his father and founder of the company, Battista ‘Pinin’ Farina.
The Ferrari Pinin had a wheelbase five centimetres longer than the Ferrari 400 and the 365 GT4 2+2. The futuristic design was the work of Diego Ottina under the direction of Leonardo Fioravanti, who had also been responsible for some of Pininfarina’s greatest Ferrari designs since the ’60s.
Aside from the four-door body style, one of the most notable features of the car was the very low height of the hood. Strikingly, the windows were tinted and mounted flush to hide the A- and B-pillars, giving the impression of a single piece of glass wrapping all the way around from C-pillar to C-pillar. Other unique features of this concept car included ‘multi-parabolic’ lights. Designed in conjunction with Lucas, they were incorporated into the body and utilised three lenses, with the middle one the same colour as the bodywork. The windscreen wipers retracted under a panel to help with streamlining, and the five-spoke wheels were angled like the blades of a turbine.
Interior appointments were given a high priority; special tan Connolly leather wraps most surfaces, and onboard computerisation controls all the passenger comfort features. Along with the extra legroom, afforded by the Pinin’s lengthened wheelbase, the rear-seated passengers also have their own controls as well as a second radio to be used with headphones (much like modern passenger cars).
Though the Pinin concept certainly appeared extremely advanced for the early ’80s, much of the technology was only a conceptualisation of what may have been. Sadly, the Pinin was never to make it into production. FIAT, Ferrari’s parent company, was busy developing smaller cars, such as the Uno, and wasn’t about to spend its precious resources on the first four-door Ferrari. The concept was featured at a number of shows, including the 1980 Los Angeles Auto Show and Carrozzeria Italiana in Pasadena in 1981, however, the Pinin would remain a static show car.
The Pininfarina design slowly faded from memory until years later, when it was sold to Jacques Swaters, the famed head of the successful Ecurie Francorchamps Belgian racing team and close friend of Enzo Ferrari. In 2005, Mr. Swaters showed the Pinin at the Essen Motor Show, which was notably part of Pininfarina’s 75th anniversary celebration. In 2008, Mr. Swaters sold the Pinin to its current owner at RM’s Ferrari – Leggenda e Passione auction. He wanted to do more with the car rather than keep it as an object to display and wanted to realise its running and driving potential. The Pinin was taken to Oral Engineering to carry out the task of not only making it a functional driver but one with proper Ferrari running gear.
Mauro Forghieri, a former Ferrari Technical Director, headed up the project at Oral Engineering. It was noted that the front bulkhead was basically a stretched 400GT, while the engine bay was adapted from the 512BB’s rear sub-frame. A 400GT gearbox was made to fit a newly sourced 512 engine that was placed further forward in the engine bay. Apart from mating the engine to a gearbox, there was still a lot of work in order to make the Pinin a drivable Ferrari. The underlying chassis was strengthened, a fuel tank was fabricated along with a new radiator, an entire wiring loom was manufactured, and finally the Pinin received new suspension and brakes.
In March 2010, the Pinin was driven for the first time down a disused airport runway near Modena, Italy. The fully functional four-door Ferrari had finally come to fruition. After 30 years, the meticulously preserved Pinin is a credit to its namesake and his company. It is accompanied in the sale by a truly impressive and irreplaceable history file. As the only four-door Ferrari, the Pinin is a unique, forward-thinking design statement that embodies the longstanding relationship between one of the world’s finest sports car builders and its preferred coachbuilder and designer.
SOURCE: RM Auctions
PICTURES: Dirk de Jager ©2011 Courtesy of RM Auctions
