Axon's Automotive Anorak: Luigi Colani – from toothbrush to speed‑record Ferrari Testarossa

Colani never quite became a household name in same way as other leading industrial designers such as Raymond Loewy (the author of the iconic Coca Cola glass bottle, Greyhound bus, Studebaker Avanti, etc.), Phillipe Starck (orange juicer, ghost chair, etc.) and James Dyson (vacuum cleaner, AirBlade hand dryer, forthcoming electric car, and so on). However, to those in the know, Colani and his highly distinctive designs – including numerous cars, trucks, motorcycles and locomotives – was a much admired artist and visionary, especially appreciated in Japan where his work was widely known and respected.

Born as Lutz Colani in Berlin in 1928 (dropping Lutz to become Luigi in 1957), Colani’s signature organic forms were first revealed in the 1950s with car designs for Fiat, Lancia, Alfa Romeo and Volkswagen, before he expanded into furniture design and musical instruments in the 1960s, with vehicle styling remaining his core activity. The following decade he moved into broader industrial design, creating cameras, pens, TV sets, kitchens and coffins (!), as well as some sensational cars, bikes, trucks and trains.

Colani built his first eponymous car in the mid-1960s, the GT, a rear-engined, two-seater roadster based on a VW platform. Bizarrely a British replica of this model was introduced as the Ribble kit car in 2014, with the GRP moulds probably taken from an original Colani GT!

Colani went on to make a curvy Alfa Romeo Giulia-based GT, before introducing a series of increasingly unusual one-offs and prototypes in the 1970s and beyond. These included the wild Mercedes-Benz Unimog-based Thyssen Sea Ranger, a huge amphibious vehicle, plus the remarkable tear-drop-shaped 1970 Miura Le Mans concept, based on a stripped-down Lamborghini with an articulated forward cabin ‘pod’, separated from the Miura’s V12 motor mounted midships in a ‘trailer’ attached at the roof. Both vehicles looked very Thunderbirds.

A Mercedes C111-inspired C-112 concept was equally unique, with a claimed drag coefficient of just Cd 0.2. This car lead to Mercedes-Benz commissioning Colani to build an increasingly advanced and odd range of truck (can and trailer) concepts, some cunningly using the German Brand’s famous three-pointed star emblem as a clever rotating windscreen wiper layout.

His other late 1970s concepts ranged from a curvy, low-drag Citroën 2CV-based two-box saloon capable of a frugal average of 138mpg, through to a very long neo-retro 1930s-style L’Aiglon Roadster, powered by an Opel Diplomat V8 and stretching well over 20 feet in length. A Coupe version was later presented as well.

By the 1980s, in addition to the Colani-created kettles, cutlery, aircraft, PCs and toothbrushes that sold like expensive hot cakes in Japan, where he briefly relocated from his regular studio based high in the Swiss Alps. Luigi made a very slippery 198mph land-speed record motorcycle, the Colani-Egli MRD-1, leading him on to a series of 13 cars designed to break records on the Bonneville salt flats of the USA. He even re-clothed a Ferrari Testarossa with an ultra-low and strange body to break Bonneville speed records.

He also attempted to revive the once-prestigious Horch car brand – now part of Volkswagen Audi – with an ambitious luxury retro 1996 ‘Mega-Roadster’ in addition to unusual coupes based on cars as diverse as the Ferrari Daytona, Ford Ka, Chevrolet Corvette and Volkswagen Polo, with more outlandish truck concepts made for Mercedes and others. 

As the part creator and curator of the annual Cartier ‘Style et Luxe’ Concours at the Festival of Speed presented by Mastercard, it had long been a personal dream to get Luigi Colani along as one of the distinguished judges at Goodwood.

Sadly with a long illness and now his passing, Luigi will never make it along to the Cartier Lawn. Hopefully one day though we will still be able to pay a fitting tribute to this unique and creative character, as many of his cars still exist and would be inspirational to see displayed at Goodwood. Until this moment, I shall cherish my rare, collectable and very swoopy Colani-styled toothbrush that I bought in Japan all those years ago and remember this eccentric genius designer.