Remembering Marcello Gandini: Legendary Designer’s 8 Best Cars

Marcello Gandini has died, aged 85. The Italian designer, best known for his time working at Bertone, is among the most legendary in history – producing some of the most iconic designs to ever grace the automotive world.

His back catalogue is so vast, it’s hard to pick favourites. But, in his honour, we’ve done our best to whittle it down to a few – and in no particular order.

Lamborghini Miura Designing one of the most iconic sports cars of all time in your 20s is one hell of a feat, and that’s exactly what Marcello Gandini did. While working at Bertone, one of his earliest projects was the Lamborghini Miura, the Italian brand’s first proper sports car and its first with a mid-engined layout, too.

From those inverse pop-up headlights to its long but low silhouette and louvred engine cover, it remains one of the greatest-looking cars to have ever been built.

Renault 5 Turbo It wasn’t just mid-engined sports cars in the highlights reel of Gandini, you can put a mid-engined hatchback in there too. Yes, Gandini – along with Marc Deschamps – was responsible for the Renault 5 Turbo homologation special.

Although born for a need to go rallying, the widened rear of this R5 wasn’t just a hack job, with Gandini and Deschamps responsible for making its new rear haunches look good too.  If Renault could pay tribute with a new version of the 5, we’d be delighted.

Alfa Romeo Montreal It’s near-impossible to pick out the best-looking Alfa Romeo, but the Montreal is surely a contender. Initially showcased as a concept in 1967, the GT car gained its name from the Expo 67 it was first shown in – held in, you guessed it, Montreal.

There were a few changes between the concept and the road car, most obviously the bizarre retractable headlight coverings switching from a quad-set to a single unit on either side, but the overall wedge-ness was thankfully retained.

Lancia Stratos Based on some of his other creations, it’s perhaps no surprise that one of the ultimate wedges was also the creation of Gandini.

Looking almost like a shrunken Countach a year before the Countach was a thing, the Lancia Stratos broke the rally norm of ultra-boxy coupes or rear-engined French oddities in being a purpose-built sports car. None since have ever quite caught the eye in the same way.

De Tomaso Pantera Credit: Mr.choppers, Wikicommons

The De Tomaso Pantera was very un-Italian in having a gigantic Ford V8 as its beating heart, yet so incredibly Italian in its design.

Gandini wasn’t the original designer of the Pantera, but instead was later brought in to create the almost F40-like Pantera SI. We’d argue that was its best form. 

Lamborghini Countach If you were a child born before 2000 with any remote interest in cars, there’s one of two cars you almost certainly had on your wall growing up – either the Ferrari F40 or the Lamborghini Countach.

The latter is arguably the greatest bit of design to come from the mind of Gandini. He had tough boots of his own making to fill with the Miura, but the Countach more than did that. Although most will remember the later cars with ever-ridiculous bodywork, it was the simple yet so effective original iteration of the V12 legend that we’re most fond of.

BMW E12 5-series It wasn’t just sports cars and performance specials that Gandini had a hand in, penning a few more accessible cars in his time. Among the best of those was the E12 5-series.

This was, of course, the very first of the 5-series. Although Gandini was a co-designer and didn’t quite have totally free reign in design – after all, it still had to look like a BMW – the end result was magnificent. We’d even go as far as to argue it’s still the best 5-series to date.

Citroen BX Another accessible Gandini car, yet one much less restrained in its styling, was the Citroen BX. Following on from the Citroen GS, the BX clearly took some inspiration as an evolution of that design rather than a total revolution.

Those partly-covered rear wheels for a start, and its angular face with big, boxy headlights too. Similarly to the De Tomaso Pantera (perhaps the first time anyone’s compared that to a BX), the racier it got, the better it looked, peaking with the GTi.