Starting at the age of 17, giving the world some brilliant car designs, legendary car designer Giorgetto Giugiaro has finally sold his 90.1 percent stake in Italdesign Giugiaro SpA to Audi. He has retained 9.9 per cent stake for himself and his son, Fabrizio. On Sunday, June 28, Giugiaro sold his remaining stake to Audi.
The news first came from the announcement made in an email by Giugiaro himself, stating that both, him and Fabrizio, his son, have resigned on Monday from the Italdesign Giugiaro board. It also has been added that he has willingly surrendered his position of honorary chairman.
The statement issued by Italdesign Giugiaro says that Giorgetto Giugiaro has left to give more time to his personal interests, the statement also adds that company’s development would not be influenced with this change of hands. The company will keep growing and by the year-end, since its takeover in 2010, the company will have hired 250 additional employees.
Giorgetto Giugiaro started at the age of 17 as a car designer at Fiat. He then worked at Bertone and Ghia, a Turin-based coachbuilders. Then in 1968, he finally started his own company. He has designed about 100 production cars during his career as the professional designer. His work included the first generations of Volkswagen Golf, Panda, Audi 80, and Fiat Punto.
He also worked on some famous sport cars such as the De Tomaso Mangusta, Maserati Ghibli and Bora, Lotus Esprit, Alfa Romeo Alfetta GT and Brera. In the European Automotive Hall of Fame in Geneva in 2001, he was one of the 13 charter inductees.
Unlike its rivals, Italdesign Giugiaro provided car makers with services like design, engineering, prototyping and testing. The production of these cars was left for the car makers.
