Exploring Italdesign - Lamborghini's iconic design house

Right now, the most obvious push is on the recently revealed V10 supercar, the Zerouno, or ‘01’ in numerals. Just five examples will be made. As you read this, the first car is on display at the Geneva show, with chief designer Filippo Perini as its proud presenter and its anonymous Belgian owner doubtless prominent in the audience. He’ll have parted with well over the nominal starting price of £1.3 million for the privilege. Each Zerouno owner is being offered extensive upgrades and options that could push prices as high as £2m.

Behind the scenes, Italdesign is also working hard on its other missions. The academy is already flushing out as much young talent as it can handle, and the company has again become successful at finding outside clients, especially for engineering projects.

“People know us as a design company because of the reputation of Mr Giugiaro,” says Franco Bay, an Italdesign director helping lead its renaissance. “But pure design projects account for only about 15% of what we do. We do lots of behindthe-scenes engineering, can deliver turn-key cars and can even handle low-volume production. We’ve done 200-per-year runs in recent years and we have capacity for up to 500 cars.”

Perini is a fascinating character. A former client of Italdesign’s during his nine years at Lamborghini and 13 years at Alfa Romeo, he was the main man on the Alfa 8C Competizione but describes himself as “an odd kind of designer” because he trained as an engineer first.

When I arrive, there are two weeks to run until Geneva. All attention centres on the first Zerouno. Four cars are sold, but “maybe one” is still available to the squillionaire with slow reactions, says Bay.

Cars like these seem surprisingly easy to sell these days. Bay and Perini confess to having a network of “20 or 30 friends” they know will always be interested in such cars. Talks are already scheduled to discuss concepts for the next Italdesign ‘special’ and Astalosch has already told the world there will be a new one every 18 to 24 months.

We walk along the Via Roma and turn right into a virtual reality theatre, where images of the new car can be projected in full size on a massive screen. There’s also a rig for a driving game that Italdesign has adapted to the characteristics of Zerouno so owners can drive before they even see a prototype.

On this trip, I’ve been a bit concerned about the car’s mighty price given that there’s an awful lot of Audi R8 V10 beneath it, notwithstanding the facts that the normally aspirated 5.2-litre Audi Sport V10 is one of the finest supercar engines going, that units like it won’t be around for much longer (for clean air reasons) and that the MSS platform – also used by Lamborghini – that underpins everything is about the best there is.

Within minutes, it becomes clear why projects like this attract people who can afford them, and move out of the realm of conventional value for money. They are about extreme rarity, extreme quality, tiny design refinement done exactly your way and about a car that will perfectly suit your dimensions and colour/ trim preferences – all of it realised by some of the best people in the business. Perini explains the car’s key advantages: it undercuts competitors by around 150kg, so a performance advantage can be delivered without any engine changes, although he does admit to re-engineering the already magnificent exhaust note just a bit.

The body, love it or hate it, is a masterpiece of detailed design in carbonfibre. Two large clamshells, front and rear, cover most of the car’s structure and deliver important weight savings. The roof is lowered by 50mm, but for homologation reasons the essential structure isn’t disturbed. Perini’s policy is to give the car a sculptural Italian character above the waist, and to shape it below the belt line for best aerodynamic performance, developed using a specially built, not-for-sale mule.

Using a series of full-sized images, we examine the Zerouno’s details: the deep windscreen, the “stretched hexagon” frontal air scoop (that splits airflow over the bonnet into a liftkilling Y-shape) and even a tiny slot, barely visible to the naked eye, that cuts nose lift and smooths airflow over the roof. The chance to discuss such minutiae with the car’s creator – and have him react to your comments – is what the owner is paying for.