True, it was Italdesign that created, in the original Golf, the car that saved VW, but this prolific company has also produced any number of landmark Fiats including the Panda, Uno and Punto, as well as beautiful Alfa Romeos, Maseratis, the BMW M1, the Lotus Esprit and countless concept cars, many of them highly influential. So the harnessing of Italdesign to one car-making group was in some ways a sad outcome, even if the future of vehicle carrozzeria has turned precarious over the past two decades, the climate threatening Pininfarina and snuffing out Bertone.
Happily, Italdesign’s fresh remit is to chase for business not only with the VW Group but also every other car maker, just as it used to. The reason for that change of direction is rather unexpectedly linked to a scandal, namely the 2015 revelation of VW’s diesel emission misdemeanour(s), the aftermath of which saw a decline in Italdesign’s orders. At the end of the same year, it started looking for work beyond the VW Group. “In 2015, only 1% of our business was for external clients,” says CEO Jörg Astalosch. “Now it’s 25%, and the aim is to get to 50%.”
You might wonder why a car maker would entrust a rival with developing its secret project but, as Astalosch explains, “every customer is kept separate and secret. They can audit us at any time, and confidentiality can be contractually guaranteed. We stay fit, because they can visit at any time. Even our chairman, Volkswagen’s head of purchasing Bernd Martens, doesn’t know who we work for. That’s only revealed if the client wants to buy VW Group parts.”
Operating Chinese walls like this is how independent consultancies must work regardless of owner, and work it apparently does for Italdesign. Astalosch mentions Vietnamese start-up Vinfast, for which the company is developing an SUV, a saloon and a city car, and China’s First Automobile Works as customers, as well as automotive clients in America, northern Europe, Japan and Korea.