Home > REVIEWS > Marcello Gandini: Maestro of Design

VeloceToday Review
By Pete Vack
November 1, 2016


Right up front, let us tell you that this 800-page, two-volume set entitled Marcello Gandini, Maestro of Design is one of the best books on automotive designers we’ve ever read. We did a quick Internet search and found many new (and old) books on Italian designers, (see list at end of this article) but none that approached the coverage of Gandini. It is devastatingly interesting, beautifully illustrated, nails down the history of every design and/or car touched by Marcello Gandini. The author, Gautam Sen, weaves the designer’s comments (from an introvert who is almost incapable of commenting on himself or his work) into a fascinating story backed by interesting and relevant histories.

And because this work is not only so good, but so massive and relevant to our readership, it is simply not fair to write a book review consisting of a couple of paragraphs. So we will review it by volume, this being the cars of Gandini, Volume One. We’ll launch the review of Volume II next week.

Of all the rightfully famous Italian car designers, Marcello Gandini is perhaps the least well-known, yet his achievements are legion. That’s what makes this book so relevant and informative. We’ve all heard of Gandini of course, but aside from a few of the truly amazing Lamborghinis, it is more difficult to pinpoint his other work. Like the Lancia Stratos Zero and the Lancia Stratos Rally; like the Ferrari Rainbow, the Alfa Montreal, Navajo and Carabo, the Renault 5 Turbo, BMW 5-series, Fiat X1/9, the Dino 308GT4; an incomplete list is four pages long. We will highlight just a small percentage of the cars that are of interest to our readers.


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