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Pioneering Designs For A New Decade

26 "Alfa Romeo called us in and said, Could you make a concept car - the "8C of the future" - for our 100-year anniversary?" explains Berton...

Alfa Romeo Giulietta

Alfa Romeo Giulietta
 

 Vehicle type: production/5-door hatchback
Fiat Group Design Director: Lorenzo Ramaciotti
Chief Interior Designer: Ramon Ginah
Senior Interior Designers: Daniele Calonaci & Gianni Gariglio
Colour & trim manager: Rossella Guasco
Graphic design manager: Davide Crepaldi
Project started: summer 2005
Project completed: April 2008
Launch: Geneva/March 2010

 

“As we looked at the history of the Giuletta we decided we wanted to keep it this way – to keep the architecture horizontal and wide-feeling. It’s not for the young guy who drives alone, it’s a family car; a car for your mother, your father, people with children, for everybody,” says Chief Interior Designer Ramon Ginah.

Project 904 – the internal codename for the Giulietta – had a very difficult birth; work began at Alfa Romeo’s Centro Stile in 2005, with designers competing with sketch proposals. Outside consultancies such as Bertone were then brought in to add their ideas in 2006/7, resulting in a full-scale clay model that was later presented to newly appointed Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne. He rejected the design, and the Centro Stile team was asked to create a completely new proposal – exterior
and interior – from scratch. The interior sketching process began a new in November 2007 – just a few weeks prior to the exterior design freeze, and some six months before the interior was frozen (in April 2008). “The brief was for something simple, emotional, ergonomic and spacious,” recalls Chief Interior Designer, Ramon Ginah. “In terms of emotion, one of things we started to look at was the original Giulietta and Giullietta Sprint, at this horizontal architecture they had, to try and use this as inspiration. A horizontal architecture helps in creating an ergonomic feel, because it allows you to divide the functions into zones.”


 
 
 
     


 

 

 

 

 

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