Hess Classic presents/ 20 Years of Italian ‘chefs d’oeuvres’

The 1960s and 1970s were undeniably the golden age of Italian automobiles. Famous designers such as Pininfarina, Gandini, Bizzarrini created the prestigious Italian signature that influenced automobile history on multiple levels.

Those cars: The Bizzarrini A3/C or the Ferrari 250 GTL were named ‘Sculptures in motion’ by the Peterson’s Auto Museum for combining breathtaking design and stunning technical performance. The designers at the time managed to captivate and condense into these cars the essence of ‘made in Italy’; a pure, wild, beautiful and fast object. Not only were these cars elegant and beautiful, they were also functional, innovative and possessed a strong engineering focus.

As the golden years continued, Italian design (and especially automobile design) gained a new vision: more youthful, renewed in a way. We have on the one hand, the birth of the ‘supercar’, a term created to describe the remarkability of the Lamborghini Miura. On the other hand, we have cars ‘democratically designed for everyman’ (Masterpieces of Italian design, written by Charlotte and Peter Fiell, 2013) such as the Fiat 500 and the Fiat Multipla.

Even motorbikes have their own elegant features expressing speed, power and Italian ferocity; Ducati is the most renowned brand in the world that reflected these traits in the 1970s. This exhibition highlights the Italian car and moto masterpieces from 1957 to 1977 and emphasizes an artistic national style.