Sergio Pininfarina, former Ferrari design chief, dies

The man who designed some of the most glamorous cars to hit the road in the past five decades, has died at 85. Here are a few of his iconic creations.

By msnbc.com staff and news wires
Sergio Pininfarina, the man behind the designs for some of the most glamorous cars to hit the road in the past five decades, has died, the company that bore his family's name said Tuesday. He was 85.

Pininfarina was an auto design genius whose stamp can be seen on a slew of iconic cars, including the 1984 Ferrari Testarossa, the 1996 Peugeot 406 Coupe, the 1986 Fiat 124 Spider, the 2002 Ferrari Enzo, the 2003 Maserati Quattroporte and the 2004 Ferrari Scaglietti.

He headed a family company founded in 1930 by his father, Gian Battista 'Pinin' Farina, a onetime Turin carriage maker, that had a knack since the 1950s for creating stunning production and concept cars. Pininfarina designed autos for Ferrari, the company most associated with the formidable design house, Alfa Romeo, Maserati, Rolls-Royce, Chevrolet, Cadillac, Bentley, Volvo and Peugeot.

The ground-breaking 1947 Cisalfa coupe, designed by Gian Battista after World War Two, now sits in New York's Museum of Modern Art. It was one of Sergio's favourite models.

Gian Battista also initiated the Ferrari connection in 1952, but Sergio ended up managing most of their common projects and turned the business from craftsman level into a world renowned name.

Born in 1926, Sergio joined the family firm after graduating in mechanical engineering from Turin's Polytechnic University, became chief executive in 1961 and then chairman when his father died in 1966.

Benoit Tessier / Reuters

A Ferrari P4/5, designed by Pininfarina, is displayed on media day at the Paris Mondial de l'Automobile in Paris in this September 29, 2006 file photo.

In his half-a-century reign at Pininfarina, the company's automobile production rose from 524 units per year to more than 50,000.

Pininfarina was listed on the Italian Stock Exchange in 1986.

Sergio Pininfarina stepped down to become honorary chairman in 2006, shortly before the financial crisis, which hit the car industry heavily.

Many small builders, like Germany's Karmann and France's Heuliez, did not survive. Other design firms downsized, while Italdesign - another leading Italian stylist - was acquired by Volkswagen AG.

Pininfarina was forced to raise capital in 2009, re-negotiate its debt and shrink its business.

It had to close its manufacturing operations and reinvent itself as a smaller niche design player, with the family's 77 percent stake in the company used as collateral for loans with creditors it needs to pay back by 2018.

In May, Pininfarina said it expected to post its first profit this year since 2004.

Sergio Pininfarina's death comes about three months after the passing at age 76 of famed Porsche founder, and the designer of the iconic Porsche 911, Ferdinand Alexander Porsche.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Read More

GM chief says public is past anger over bailout

DETROIT — The American public has gotten past its animosity toward General Motors for taking a government bailout in 2009, the company's top executive said Thursday.

Chairman and CEO Dan Akerson said a poll taken last summer for GM by Washington public opinion firm Peter Hart Research Associates shows that more than 70 percent of Americans have a positive opinion of the company. When the same poll was taken in July of 2009, more than 70 percent had a negative opinion, Akerson said.

"I think America loves a competitor. I think General Motors, Chevrolet in particular, is part of Americana," Akerson said during an appearance at the Detroit Economic Club.

In 2009, GM, saddled with high debt and expensive labor costs, needed $49.5 billion in government loans to survive a trip through bankruptcy court.

The U.S. government got a stake in the restructured company, part of which was sold in an initial public stock offering about one year ago on Nov. 18, 2010. The government's remaining 500 million shares would have to sell for around $53 per share for the U.S. to break even. Such a sale probably won't come anytime soon. GM shares are trading around one-third less than the $33 IPO price.

The summer before the IPO, then-GM Chairman and CEO Ed Whitacre said government ownership was hurting the company's sales. Whitacre said GM didn't want to be known as "Government Motors."

But Akerson said on Thursday that the new GM is now making money and has passed that stage.

"I do think that we've kind of gotten over that," he said.

GM made a net profit of just over $7.1 billion in the first nine months of the year.

Akerson said the government doesn't get involved in running GM. But he's concerned about government pay limits for companies that took bailout money. GM, he said, won't be able to give bonuses to its 25 highest-paid executives — even though it could make $8 billion or $9 billion this year.

"We've got some very, very good people that could do well at other companies who are doing this one for the home team," he said.

Akerson pinned the drop in GM's stock price on the broader economy, not automaker's performance. Shares of General Motors Co. were down 96 cents, or 4.2 percent, to $21.69 in afternoon trading Thursday. They're down about 41 percent for the year, slightly worse than the 40 percent drop in shares of Ford Motor Co.

Akerson also said GM will take actions to right its money-losing European operations. He referred to French competitor Peugeot Citroen SA's plan cut 6,000 jobs because of flat demand in Europe, although he stopped short of saying there would be plant closures or layoffs at GM.

He said the government debt crisis in Europe could have a larger impact on the U.S. than the 2008 financial meltdown and recession, because Europe is "a hugely and important cultural and economic center of gravity for the world."

Last week GM said its third-quarter net income fell 15 percent from a year earlier to $1.7 billion, partly because of a pretax loss of $292 million in Europe. The loss forced GM to back off an earlier forecast of breaking even in Europe this year.

"Clearly you can't have a unit as important as Opel is to General Motors chronically unprofitable," he said. "It's not sustainable and it's not good for the company."

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Read More