Say it ain't so!!!!

[Whitespy]

I hope this does not happen, Pininfarina is being sold to Chinese auto makers.
Here is a link to an article.
http://www.chinacartimes.com/2010/12/28/three-chinese-companies-fighting-for-pininfarina-baic-in-the-lead/

I really hope this does not happen. First Bertone going down now this. there won't be any one left designing cars with character. I am tired of all the vanilla being produced lately.

[kev1_3s]

Pinninfarina's clout in the motor industry is beginning to dwindle with even there most famous of patrons Ferrari making moves to limit the amount of control that they had over designing there cars. The simple fact is that the day of design houses seems to be done I'm afraid although I'd of taught Pinninfarina should be able to survive as they have extensive manufacturing facility's! I wonder if the body's that they have will be stamped " made in china"

[SubGothius]

It's not as if they'd just buy out Pininfarina for the "brand" alone, close up shop in Italy and let Chinese designers take over the studios; that'd amount to throwing away the goods to keep the box it came in. PF's design, innovation, and niche-volume manufacturing facilities and expertise IS their hot commodity, and all are areas where the Chinese auto industry has been lacking. I reckon the only significant thing changing would be who's funding the paychecks and who's benefiting from PF's existing, established skills and facilities.

The Chinese auto industry has lately started demonstrating that they're not satisfied being cut-rate also-ran copycats, so when they buy out established marques like Volvo and refined platforms like the ex-SAAB models, they're not so much taking them over to impose their will, but rather keeping them as-is to examine them and absorb their strengths, learning and benefiting from them. I am reminded here of how Apple bought out NeXT Computer in a corporate/financial sense, yet effectively Steve Jobs and his ex-NeXT team wound up taking over Apple from the inside in a managerial/technical sense.