pininfarina | IEDEI

April102012

business, cars, design, iedei, men, vintage

VW EA41 and the Porsche 555.

It’s 1952, and Volkswagen is doing all sorts of projects trying to figure out a replacement for the VW Beetle. Mysteriously they had a design study done by Pininfarina, entitled the “EA41”. It sure looks a helluva lot like the Lancia Aurelia B20 Coupe from the rear end, but there is a Beetle hiding under there somewhere. I’m not sure if this car was from scratch or not, but i’m guessing this was merely a design study for which Pininfarina was hired to propose.

Lancia Aurelia B20 Coupe, also designed by Pininfarina around that time:

So as VW was searching for a viable alternative, they also happened to do a bunch of different design studies of a rear-engined new alternative……what did Porsche come up with? the Porsche 555!!

and this! the only photo i’ve been able to find of an actual Porsche 555 that was made….looks fantastic and I must admit I am very intrigued. I am also, however, bothered by the lack of information about the car—-but obviously as this was only a design/concept study it likely disappeared like most ideas did back then!

Porsche 555

eventually influencing the Porsche 356 “notchback” Coupe:

srcs: Rastall (excellent page), curbsideclassic, smcars

Tagged audi, pininfarina, porsche, porsche 555, prototype cars in the 50s, volkswagen ea41, vw, vw beetle prototypes, vw ea41

January222011

9 Comments

automotive, cars, iedei

Alfa Romeo Spider/Death of the Brera.

As i’ve found, the Alfa Romeo Brera is reaching the end of its production. It was a beautiful original concept design, pretty much ruined for production (however STILL much better looking, even in ruined form, than most other cars out there), which never really translated into a glorious return to form for Alfa. The Brera Spider was even a bigger fail; floppy, slow, and completely failure of a drive!

How did Alfa Romeo ruin the Brera? I don’t know, but they really did.

So i’m guessing this 2010 Pininfarina Spider Concept introduced last year will somehow find its way in as the next Alfa Romeo Spider. I love the design, and i would LOVE to see a Coupe version of it……i think it would be a fitting successor to the design of the Brera.