Topic: SOLVED - oko008 : 1952-54 Linea Diamante by Gio Ponti for Touring

[oko94]

Gio Ponti was a famous Italian architect and designer. His best known works are the Pirelli tower in Milano and the Superleggera chair. The Linea Diamante was the only car he designed but it was never built as it was considered too advanced. He had adapted to car design his architectural principle of "finished shape" and his obsession for diamond patterns.

[Arunas]

I learnt something new today! 

Was this car ever built in some form? Or was it just a drawing?

[oko94]

Some two-door and four-door scale models have been made but no full-size model or prototype. If I have time I'll post some pictures tonight, but you can easily find them on the web meanwhile.

It's a fascinating project but strangely it almost never gets mentioned in books or articles about Touring or car design in general. You have to be an architecture enthusiast (which I am) to learn about it...until now at least

[Carnut]

Fascinating puzzle.
His ideas were certainly way ahead of their time in 1952.

The Linea Diamante was also proposed with 2 doors!:

[oko94]

Glad you enjoyed it !

It was funny to see that even experienced puzzlers thought it was a mid-sixties project.

I think the car industry should ask more often people from other fields to bring fresh ideas. Nowadays car design is all about brand identity and surface excitement and SUVs, but real new concepts are lacking.

[Carnut]

Glad you enjoyed it !

It was funny to see that even experienced puzzlers thought it was a mid-sixties project.

I think the car industry should ask more often people from other fields to bring fresh ideas. Nowadays car design is all about brand identity and surface excitement and SUVs, but real new concepts are lacking.

I had dismissed it as being 1960s because of the 'over-riders' on the bumpers; a design like that one would never have had such things in the sixties.
So I looked for it as 1950s but came up with nothing as I'd never heard of Gio Ponti!

[oko94]

4-door and 2-door scale models

[barrett]

It's all over the internet, but worth including here. A full-size mock-up of this car has finally been built!