Meet the man who designs Ferraris

10 August, 2016

In a rare interview with Head of Ferrari Design Flavio Manzoni, in the September issue of New Zealand Classic Car, he explains, “There is a very nice phrase of Renzo Piano, the famous architect, that explains that the design is something in between the prudence of tradition and the courage of the future. So it’s always a balance between the two, so you cannot forget such an important history like the Ferrari history, but we have to be really creative in order to imagine that possible evolution, possible transformation of the design, the Ferrari design in a very natural way. So we have also, with our new projects, to anticipate somehow the development of the car industry with very excellent products, so we have to be courageous and respectful at the same time.”

To read the full fascinating interview with Flavio Manzoni, get your copy of the September issue of New Zealand Classic Car here. For now, check out the gallery of Flavio Manzoni and his designs.


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Motorman: When New Zealand built the Model T Ford

History has a way of surrounding us, hidden in plain sight. I was one of a group who had been working for years in an editorial office in Augustus Terrace in the Auckland city fringe suburb of Parnell who had no idea that motoring history had been made right around the corner. Our premises actually backed onto a century-old brick building in adjacent Fox Street that had seen the wonder of the age, brand-new Model T Fords, rolling out the front door seven decades earlier.
Today, the building is an award-winning two-level office building, comprehensively refurbished in 2012. Happily, 6 Fox Street honours its one time claim to motoring fame. Next door are eight upmarket loft apartments, also on the site where the Fords were completed. Elsewhere, at 89 Courtenay Place, Wellington, and Sophia Street, Timaru, semi-knocked-down Model Ts were also being put together, completing a motor vehicle that would later become known as the Car of the Century.

Lancia Stratos – building a winner

On his own, and later with his wife Suzie, Craig Tickle has built and raced many rally cars. Starting in 1988, Craig went half shares in a Mk1 Escort and took it rallying. Apart from a few years in the US studying how to be a nuclear engineer, he has always had a rally car in the garage. When he is not playing with cars, he works as an engineer for his design consulting company.
Naturally, anybody interested in rallying has heard of the Lancia Stratos, the poster child and winner of the World Rally circuit in 1974, ’75, and ’76. Just as the Lamborghini Countach rebranded the world of supercars, so, too, did the Lancia Stratos when it came to getting down and dirty in the rally world.