Intro: The Peugeot 406 Coup’ (from September, simply known as the Coup’, the Ferrari 550 Barchetta and the Enzo to name a few models from the last 2-3 years which owe their georgeous shape to the famous Pininfarina styling studio.
But Pininfarina is more than just one of the numerous Italian design houses. It is a huge industrial group consisting various companies. The most important are:
Pininfarina Spa: Financial, industrial parent company, responsible for coordination of communications and image (Communication Department since 1998), which since July 1, 2001 has been directly managing also the Administration, Planning and Control Department, the Finance and Corporate Affairs Department, the Human Resources and Organization Department, the Marketing and Business Development Department and - since 2002 - the Quality Systems Department.
Industrie Pininfarina: Carries out and supplies complete automotive projects or individual stages of projects: from product conception through the entire process of development (engineering of the product and process, construction of prototypes, testing and validation) and industrialisation, right down to the mass production of motor vehicles. Recently it was announced that the forthcoming Ford StreetKa roadster will also be produced here.
Open Air Systems: Set up by Pininfarina S.p.A. and Webasto AG (Stockdorf, Germany) in January, 2002 to develop and produce convertible roofs. Webasto brings to the deal its decades of experience in the development and series production of roof systems and Pininfarina its whole-vehicle competence and its design know-how.
The Group had a good fiscal year in 2001. 41766 cars were produced accompanied by the continued growth by the Group’s design, engineering and testing operations. |
