His design legacy sprawls way beyond the confines of Sant’Agata, however, with his work at Bertone spanning everything from the first BMW 5 Series, Citroen BX, second-generation Renault 5 and Volkswagen Polo, to the Ferrari 308 GT4 and Cizeta-Moroder V16T.
But it is his work with Lamborghini for which Gandini is arguably most famous, with the designer basically defining the style of the emerging supercar marque throughout its first three decades. He clothed the Miura’s revolutionary underpinnings.
He then threw out the Miura’s elegant ‘60s sensibilities for the jaw-dropping straight-edged Countach. He even created the so-called ‘Lamborghini door’, with scissor doors first debuting on his Alfa Romeo 33 Carabo concept car before making production on the first Countach.
His design legacy comes not just from his time at Bertone, though. After joining in 1965 – deferred two years thanks to the resistance of then-Bertone employee Giorgetto Giugiaro – Gandini remained the overseer of Stile Bertone for 15 years, leaving the design house in 1980.