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Ferrari
550 Barchetta
by Pininfarina
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1999-2003
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Pininfarina M3, Interior
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In designing METROCUBO, Pininfarina intended to get over the concept of traditional car. Rather than aim for a scaled down version of the traditional concept with its clearly differentiated front and rear, an air intake grille, lighting clusters in the usual place and so on, |
Photo: Pininfarina |
the design team sought a neutral geometrically simple shape, almost mobile urban decoration, but one that could epitomise both the dynamism of a motor vehicle, and a reassuring solidity in spite of its small dimensions.
Photo: Pininfarina
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The outcome is certainly unusual: a genuine cube placed on light alloy wheels by BBS at each corner. Above the wheels, forcefully underlining their importance in the project, are four corner pyramids whose upper parts take the technologically innovative lighting clusters developed by Valeo Eclairage.Apart from being a distinctive design feature with a fundamental role, the differently sized wheels help to show which way the vehicle is heading and like the different rakes of the windscreen and rear window give it a dynamic appearance whatever angle you view it from. In fact the design is fundamentally identical on all four sides, differently proportioned but powerfully dominating.
Photo: Pininfarina
This represents the abandonment of the classic semiology in which the design of the front, sides and tail each possessed its own stereotyped genetic coding. METROCUBO is a homogeneous monolith that presents itself identically from every angle. In the past we have often gone for a surprise that has depended on meticulously crafted complex shapes. This time we have kept it all very simple, as easy and restful as the concept it expresses.
The cabin is almost entirely glazed - the polycarbonate for the glazing is supplied by Isoclima Aerospace - and most of the steel lamella sunroof created by Webasto (who also supplied the system for heating the interior) is transparent too.Various parts of the bodywork, inside and out, are made of a "fresh" material that is rather unusual for a car: a translucent plastic that we also used, albeit rather less extensively, on the Eta Beta which came out in 1996.
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