The greatest ever car designer? There is no contest

In the line of work I’m in, I’ve interviewed auto industry titans, driven or been driven by motorsport legends and talked cars and car culture with rock stars and Hollywood actors. Stirling Moss and Dustin Hoffman I remember most fondly. Carlos Ghosn and Michael Caine I still try to forget. Not a lotta people know that.

But if I’m forced to single out my number one – the most intriguing, talented, hard-working car guy I’ve ever met – I’d nominate Giorgetto Giugiaro who, on 7 August, celebrated his 88th birthday. It was on 15 August, 1976, that the great man completed and handed in the design of and technical/industrial drawings for a then unknown, tiny, tinny automotive animal called the Fiat Panda. Almost eight million real-world motorists have since bought one. For the past 10 years, it’s been the biggest-selling city car in Europe.

The Panda remains in production (with the UK lately selling only the award-winning hybrid and electric versions of the Grande Panda) 50 years, almost to the day, after it was conceived by Giorgetto – a charming, effortlessly cool, ridiculously talented bloke I had the honour of inducting into The Motoring Hall of Fame back in the day. Last time we met – in a coffee-and-cake cafe close to the Turin he’s long ruled – we discussed gelato (his weakness), the Volkswagen Golf (another of his masterpieces that’s reached the 50-year milestone), guns (he’s credited with designing the Beretta CX4 Storm) and more. 

How he found the time and creative energy to design cars for just about every Italian manufacturer, Ferrari and Lamborghini included, I’ll never know. Additionally, along with most German makers, several leading vehicle producers in America, the Czech Republic, France, Japan, South Korea, Spain, Sweden and the UK also called him in to shape production or concept cars, trucks and motorcycles for them. Exactly how many vehicles he designed is far from clear. I identified around 150 before I gave up counting. 

Unquestionably, Giorgetto Giugiaro is the world’s greatest current car designer. Arguably, the Panda is among his finest, most accessible and compelling works. Probably the closest thing we’ve had to a car for the people since the original Beetle. 

As for that humble, accessible, no-frills Panda range that he conceived 50 years ago this week and is expected to remain in production for many years to come, I’ll say only this: it has already enjoyed an impressively lengthy, uninterrupted run stretching from 1976 to 2026. With that and its other qualities in mind, the Fiat Panda/Grande Panda is, in its numerous past and present guises, THE car of the past half century.

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