By PHIL PATTON 
"CORROSION laboratory" said the sign on the door at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the only readable legend among the
multidigit numbers along the long hall. I had gotten lost there, in
M.I.T.'s famed "infinite corridor," searching for the room where Sergio
Pininfarina, the dean of Italian automotive design, was to speak.
It struck me later that the description was an apt counterpoint to the
title of Mr. Pininfarina's talk: "Car Design: The Creation of Everlasting
Beauty." For the man who heads the most respected auto-design house in
Italy, and possibly the world, physical corrosion is not a worry: the
Ferraris he shapes are treated with care. But while the classic shapes that
Pininfarina has drawn over the years continue to gain in esteem and in
value, the role of great design houses like his is in decline.
Mr. Pininfarina's lecture here was his only American appearance this year, the 70th anniversary of the styling house founded by his father. It might seem odd that he was speaking at M.I.T. and not across town at, say, the Harvard graduate school of design. The invitation came from M.I.T.'s Media Lab, specifically from the CC++ program, which had previously brought in Chris Bangle, BMW's chief of design, and Richard Parry-Jones, director of product development at Ford. CC originally stood for "car consortium." The label has expanded, said its program coordinator, Betty Lou McClanahan, to cover "all good things that begin with C: complexity, creativity and computing among them." It could also in this case stand for carrozzerie, the Italian word for coachbuilders, of which Pininfarina is probably the most distinguished. In its 70 years, the company's badge, a lower-case "f" surmounted by a crown, has been applied to some of the world's most sought-after cars. Pininfarina has designed for Alfa Romeo, Lancia, Peugeot, Fiat and many others. But since 1950, its chief claim to fame has been its role as, in effect, the design department for Ferrari. "Only seven or eight models of Ferrari have been designed by anyone except Pininfarina," Stuart Robinson, chief executive of Ferrari North America, said as he introduced Mr. Pininfarina here. And the company has been dedicated to the high-minded - some might say quaint - idea that auto shapes can be works of art as lasting as sculpture, that form can resist the corrosive effects of time on style as well as on steel. The audience was a mixture of students; members of the Society of Automotive Engineers, New England chapter; and Ferrari buffs. Among the last group was Chuck Jordan, who was General Motors' chief designer in 1986-92. Mr. Pininfarina, 74, spoke of a beauty that for all its romance and excitement has always also been about function - "if it looks right, it will work right." He pointed out how aesthetically striking features of his cars were also functional - noting, for instance, that the 550 Maranello's face reflected the fact that the radiator was split to accommodate the placement of the engine. The design house was begun in 1930 by Sergio's father, Battista, who was known by his nickname, Pinin. The nickname became part of the company name in the late 1950's, and in 1961, the president of Italy authorized Battista to change his surname to Pininfarina, in recognition of his achievements. Sergio became chief of the company in 1959; his father died seven years later. At M.I.T., Mr. Pininfarina reviewed the company's achievements and listed his favorites: the 250 GT of 1954; the first great Ferrari by Pininfarina; the Dino 206 of 1965, the last car his father worked on; the 356 2+2, which he drives himself; and the Modena, which he called a "more refined and civilized" Ferrari. He described the everlasting beauty he idealizes as endangered by the fashions of annual model changes. He decried the "ideas of Detroit," of planned obsolescence and over-the-top styling, which he said he had been fighting since the late 1950's. It seemed odd to see Mr. Jordan, now retired, listening a few feet away; before he became head of G.M. design, Mr. Jordan worked on the 1959 Cadillac with its huge tailfins. At M.I.T., Mr. Pininfarina was preaching to a choir of automotive engineers, engineering students and Ferraristas - the marque's legion of obsessed owners and aficionados. But he pointed not just to the Ferraris and Alfas and Lancias, but to the models designed for less affluent buyers, like the Peugeot 401 coupe. Pininfarina's anniversary is also being celebrated with two new vehicles: the Ferrari 550 Barchetta and the Rossa. The Barchetta was commissioned by Ferrari's chairman, Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, as a topless version of the 550 Maranello, a front-engine car with 12 cylinders. It is a car for collectors, in the old Ferrari mode. Since the topless car is "exclusively for open use," it is also for the buyer who never has to worry about the weather. The more dramatic Rossa is Pininfarina's birthday present to itself, as well as an effort to push Ferrari toward more daring designs. The lines are extreme, even cartoonish, and some Ferrari traditionalists have been critical of it. Ferrari seems to be moving in a less exotic direction as it tries to expand sales, while the Rossa exemplifies Pininfarina's more operatic vision of the future. Some may wonder whether there is still a place for the carrozzierie, which once included Bertone, Ghia, Touring, Zagato and others. They were the custodians of the Italian tradition of sculptural coachbuilding. They are also reminders that wealthy customers once purchased personally styled car bodies separate from the chassis and engine. Today, like fine tailors, the carrozzerie are an endangered species. There are not many Ferraris around to hire them. Their clients these days are more likely to be Asian companies with new lines of subcompacts. So Pininfarina has evolved. In addition to designing and building cars, it provides engineering development and limited manufacturing services. "We have gone from being tailors," Mr. Pininfarina said, "to selling to consumers." Questions from the audience included one about global warming, a topic that probably does not keep the average Ferrari owner up at night. But Mr. Pininfarina pointed to the Ethos line of concept cars his firm designed in the mid-1990's, with electric and hybrid powerplants, and to its recent Metrocube, a design study for a city car. Mr. Pininfarina is perhaps fighting a battle of the past. Detroit's obsession with planned obsolescence has largely faded, and in its current retro mood, it seems less interested in next year's models than in lessons from the past. He can provide plenty of such lessons. Asked which designers had influenced him, he declared, "None." But he recalled the day Battista took him to his first auto show. "Look at them all," he recalled his father saying. "There is something to learn from every car, even the ugliest." "I think," Sergio said, "he was trying to teach me modesty."
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