Pininfarina’s CEO told Italian newspaper, Sunday’s Il Sole 24 Ore, that its electric-vehicle joint venture with French financier Vincent Bollore is still on track.

CEO Silvio Pietro Angori told the newspaper that the group has received more than 6,000 orders for the Bluecar, which will arrive on the market in 2011.

“The joint venture is to develop and produce the Bluecar, then each of us has their own strategy,” Angori said. “Bollore is probably interested in supplying his battery to the world and we to design electric cars also for other makers. After all the effort to make the Bluecar … maybe the exclusivity will no longer be indispensable.”

The Bollore EV will be based on the Pininfarina B0 -  a 4-seater, 4-door, automatic electric-hatchback that is powered by an electric-motor and lithium-polymer batteries produced by Bollore. The B0 will have the capacity to travel 153 miles on a full charge with a top speed of 80 mph.

Pininfarina B0:

- By: Kap Shah

Source: Reuters

According to company sources, family owners of coachbuilder Pininfarina have hired Italy’s Banca Leonardo to sell their majority stake in the company. Pincar, the Pininfarina family company, will sell its 50.7 percent stake in the company as a part of a debt agreement made with banks at the end of 2008.

“It is a commitment Pincar made with the banks. The family has no intention of leaving completely,” sources said.

Vincent Bollore, who is working with Pininfarina to develop an electric-car, said he would consider taking a stake in the coachbuilder. Separately, Tata Motors, who is already allied with Fiat, has been mentioned as an investor.

Sources at Pininfarina denied to comment on the possible buyers or provide a timetable for the deal.

- By: Omar Rana

Source: Reuters

The one-off Pininfarina Rolls-Royce Hyperion that was built for Rolls-Royce Drophead Coupe owner Ronald Hall is up for sale. We’re guessing Hall wasn’t too satisfied with his Pininfarina creation or thought he could rake in a couple of million for his one-off Drophead Coupe during the economic downturn.

The Pininfarina Rolls-Royce Hyperion has a body made of carbon fiber with the doors made of solid wood. Power comes from the same 6.75L V12 making 450-hp. 

The car is on sale now at JamesList.com for € 4,500,000 ($6,033,789 USD).

Pininfarina Rolls-Royce Hyperion:

- By: Kap Shah

Source: JameList

After being approved for a financial rescue that saved it from the equivalent of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Italian firm Pininfarina has announced that it will cease contract manufacturing when current production ends. Pininfarina said that it will concentrate exclusively on building electric-cars.

In a press release, Pininfarina said that it will not look to get new contract manufacturing orders after its current contracts expire at the end of 2011. The Italian company is currently working on the Alfa Romeo Brera coupe and Spider and the Ford Focus coupe-convertible.

The company said that it will launch production of the B0, an electric-car that it is building in a joint venture with French company Bollore, in 2010 with volume production to begin in 2011.

Pininfarina B0 is a 4-seater, 4-door, automatic electric-hatchback that is powered by an electric-motor and lithium-polymer batteries produces by Bolloré. The B0 will have the capacity to travel 153 miles on a full charge with a top speed of 80 mph.

Pininfarina B0:

One of the sleepers that we were really excited to see at the 2008 Paris Motor Show was the Pininfarina and Bolloré electric car. Well, we now have all the details and the images on what is known as the Pininfarina B0 electric car – and no this is not a concept. The Pininfarina B0 will go into mass-production with the first units rolling of the production line at the end of 2009. It will arrive in the U.S. in late 2010 – just in time to take on the Chevrolet Volt.

The Pininfarina B0 is a four-seater, four-door, automatic hatchback that is powered by an electric motor and a lithium polymer battery produced by Bolloré. A full charge will allow the B0 to travel 153 miles with a top speed of 80 mph. 0 to 37 mph comes in just 6.3 seconds. Sounds good huh? It gets better. The Pininfarina B0 also features solar panels on its roof and the hood that help it recharge and store power.

Pininfarina says the battery of the B0 does not require any maintenance and has a lifespan of 125,000 miles. Let’s just hope that pricing will be affordable – if so, Pininfarina’s got a real winner on its hands.

We’re wondering what GM, Toyota and Nissan are thinking right now.

Follow the jump for high-res images and the press release.

Pininfarina B0:

Press Release:

Bolloré and Pininfarina have entered into a partnership featuring all the expertise required to launch serial production of an electric car which, thanks to its technical characteristics and its attractive styling, is bound to make waves in motoring circles.

This car will not be a prototype. It will be a mass production model, with the first units coming off the production line at the end of 2009, after which production will be ramped up gradually based on the availability of the batteries. Built in Turin by Pininfarina-Bolloré, a joint venture formed by the two family-owned groups, the Pininfarina B0 electric car will be powered by Bolloré’s proprietary LMP technology, using a combination of batteries and supercapacitors manufactured in Bolloré’s plants in Quimper, France and Montreal, Canada. The Pininfarina B0 will be a fully-electric vehicle without any carbon dioxide production, having been designed from the ground up with that aim in mind. Its batteries will be housed in a compartment specially designed for that purpose and located under the car, between its axles, lowering its centre of gravity and providing it with outstanding road-holding properties.

With its superb body styled by Pininfarina, Italy’s renowned vehicle design shop, the Pininfarina B0 electric car will be an elegant four-seater, four-door hatchback with an automatic gearbox. Its LMP battery, which will be rechargeable in a matter of hours from a standard domestic main socket, will provide it with a range of 250 km (153 miles). The Pininfarina B0 will have a top speed that is electronically limited to 130 km/h (80 mph) and will feature potent acceleration, reaching 60 km/h from a standing start (0 to 37 mph) in 6.3 seconds. The Pininfarina B0 will also feature solar panels on its roof and hood, so as to help recharge its electrical power reserves.

LMP: revolutionary battery technology

At the heart of any electric car, lies the battery. Bolloré is a highly diversified group of companies with a combined yearly turnover of 10 billion US dollars and 35,000 employees. For the past 30 years, the group has been the world’s leading producer of components for capacitors. Thanks to its acquired know-how in extruded polymers and the storage of electrical energy, Bolloré has been working for 15 years through its subsidiary, Batscap, to develop a solid-state lithium polymer battery. This battery is able to store, weight-for-weight, and it can be recharged in just a few hours. The battery does not require any maintenance and has a lifespan of around 200,000 km (125,000 miles). Another key benefit is its unmatched safety while in operation. Added to that, the Pininfarina B0 electric car does not emit any exhaust gases, nor any fine particles. The car’s LMP batteries thus help combat air pollution. The batteries of the Pininfarina B0 also contribute to reducing noise, another nuisance which affects people’s quality of life in urban environments.

Supercapacitors: boosting acceleration and recycling power

Supercapacitors are sophisticated energy storage components developed by the Bolloré Group. In an electric car, supercapacitors draw and store energy generated while the car is braking and feed it back into the system when the car moves off again. The result is greater acceleration, increased range and a longer lifespan for the car’s battery. The electric cars powered by BatScap’s LMP batteries and supercapacitors have a range of over 250 km. They are fast (with a top speed of 130 km/h), pleasant to drive, safe, and long-lasting.

Natural energy from solar panels

Because it is 100% electric powered, the Pininfarina B0 does not generate any pollution. But the process of generating the electricity which the car uses must also, as far as possible, not have produced any atmospheric pollution. That is why the creators of the Pininfarina B0 have designed it to incorporate every possible solution designed to optimise the car’s energy efficiency and use of clean energy sources. For instance, the Pininfarina B0 electric car is fitted with supercapacitors, which enable it to store and recycle the energy that is generated while braking. Similarly, the car’s roof and part of its hood are covered with highperformance solar panels which help power some of its equipment. It goes without saying that a responsible environmental approach must be coherent throughout. Which is why all the materials used to build the car’s body, battery and interior trim have been carefully selected for their low environmental impact. All are recyclable or reusable. The Bolloré Group is also in the process of developing straight-forward panels of photovoltaic cells which might be installed by individuals or in public places to fully or partly recharge the Pininfarina B0 electric car’s batteries using solar energy.

Pininfarina will show a plug-in electric-vehicle concept at the 2008 Paris Motor Show next month. Don’t expect any crazy/aggressive Sintesi style, a fuel-cell concept car shown at the Geneva Motor Show earlier this year.

The plug-in electric concept will be a “close-to-production” version of the Blue Car (pictured above) that Pininfarina has been working on with Italian battery specialist Bollore. Pininfarina will launch the car under its own brand name and will offer it in U.S., Europe and Japan in late 2010.

On a full charge the Pininfarina electric-car, which features Lithium Metal Polymer batteries, will have a range of 124 miles – on a five minute charge the car can travel up to 15 miles.

Both Pininfarina and Bollore plan to sell 15,000 electric-cars annually by 2014. Both companies will invest 150 million euros to market and distribute the car, of which a final production model is scheduled to debut at the Geneva Motor Show in March 2009.

Source: Automotive News Europe (Subscription Required)

The Blue Car, an electric-car program that Pininfarina has been working on with French firm Bolloré, is one of the most anticipated projects from Italian design firm. Rumors had started that after the death of Pininfarina CEO Andrea Pininfarina, chances of a production version of the Blue Car had come to an end.

However, Reuters, who recently spoke with an executive of Bolloré, says that the French company will begin taking orders starting next summer. The company is also reported to be interested in acquiring a lithium mine in the Uyuni region of Bolivia.

Bolloré plans on building 10,000 batteries annually for the Blue Car which is targeted to have a 124-mile range between charges.

Source: InsideLine

We saw the Pininfarina Rolls-Royce Hyperion last weekend at the Concours d’Elegance at Pebble Beach. The one-off custom built car was made for Roland Hall and when we heard he asked Pininfarina to take his Phantom Drophead Coupe and make it into something that resembles the 1930s – we expected him to be a very old filthy-rich baby boomer.

Instead, Rolland Hall turns out to be a fairly young, rich and successful man that we all probably envy for having the money to drop on a custom-made car by Pininfarina.

Check out this video by our friends at Garage419 as they interview Roland Hall (that lucky bastard chap) along with Paolo Garella, Lowie Vermeersch, and Jason Castriota of Pininfarina.

Remember to subscribe to Garage419’s YouTube Channel.

Click through for the video.

Pininfarina Rolls-Royce Hyperion:

Source: Garage419

Pininfarina has taken the wraps off the Hyperion – a one-off custom-built car based on the Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe at the Concours d’Elegance at Pebble Beach. Roland Hall, the owner of the Rolls-Royce Drophead Coupe asked Pininfarina to build him a car that would resemble the cars of the 1930s.

The Pininfarina Rolls-Royce Hyperion give the Phantom Drophead Coupe a new front and rear fascia along with a new hood. Pininfarina also added two compartments to the front of the windscreen that hold small items such as Hall’s hunting rifles.

The body is made of carbon fiber with the doors made of solid wood. Under the hood resides the same 6.75L V12 from the Phantom Drophead Coupe that produces 450 horsepower.

Click through for more images and the press release.

Pininfarina Rolls-Royce Hyperion:

Press Release:

Pininfarina presents the Hyperion, a one-off custom-built car derived from the Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe which made its world debut at the Concours d’Elegance at Pebble Beach, America’s most important competition for historical classic and one-off cars and a prestigious annual event.

The car is named after Hyperion, one of the Titans of Greek mythology, to underline its architectural and figurative power.

Andrea Pininfarina: “The car as an artistic expression”

“It is not the first time that the Pininfarina Special Projects Division has designed a unique car from a standard production model,” said Andrea Pininfarina, Chairman and CEO of Pininfarina SpA. “In the recent past we have reinterpreted Ferrari engineering, as in the case of the Pininfarina Ferrari P4/5 of collector Jim Glickenhaus, or Peter Kalikow’s Scaglietti “K”. In the case of the Pininfarina Rolls-Royce Hyperion, Roland Hall, a collector and the owner of a Rolls-Royce Drophead Coupe, asked us to create a custom-built car that would evoke the appeal of the sumptuous cars of the 1930s. It might seem paradoxical, but today more than ever before, there is a desire on the part of a very elite clientele to return to the idea of the car as an artistic expression. As it was in the 1950s. With the Pininfarina Rolls-Royce Hyperion, our team of designers and engineers was able to express its creative skills and to apply Pininfarina expertise without limits, save that of coming as close as possible to the type of car that our customer had in mind. The result was a custom-built unit that is firmly rooted in the values of the Pininfarina and Rolls-Royce brands, with lines and dimensions that are hard to find in a 21st century model. The Pininfarina Rolls-Royce Hyperion takes up the legacy of other Rolls-Royces designed by Pininfarina, the Silver Dawn saloon of 1951, for example, or the Camargue coupe of 1975.”

The concept in brief

The history of Pininfarina offers plenty of examples of special cars built on “noble” bases. Which is why the company naturally welcomed Roland Hall’s proposal to work on a Rolls-Royce floorpan. For the new Pininfarina one-off, however, the Special Projects Division wanted a new idea, something absolutely unique, which only an individual in love with the car as an abstract, and not merely utilitarian, concept could appreciate. And so the Pininfarina Rolls-Royce Hyperion project was born, in the Autumn of 2007.

In terms of the styling, the first brainwave came when thinking of some of the cars of the 1930s, with their majestic, regal bonnets, and a body that surrounded the driver and a single passenger. Distinctive features of a car which, thanks to its strength and elegance, does not need to move to draw attention to itself.

Like all the cars designed by Pininfarina, the secret of the Pininfarina Rolls-Royce Hyperion lies in its absolute harmony between masses and volumes, and the perfect balance of every proportion. Structurally, we moved the driving position further back (400 mm) and took out the rear seats. We designed a new hood, which folds behind the seats under a wood-lined cover. In front of the windscreen we created two compartments for small items or for sports equipment, such as Mr. Hall’s hunting rifles.

The bodywork is made of carbon fibre, while the details are applied using a technology adopted in boat building. The doors were made of solid wood by craftsmen who specialise in creating components for luxury boats. This is another aspect of the programme of Pininfarina special cars: offering customers unique stylistic and technical solutions that are not possible on mass produced cars.

Some of the best international firms contributed to the realisation of the project: Re Fraschini for the carbon, Isoclima for the glazed surfaces, Proxi engineering for the drawings of the car, Triom for the lights and headlights, Fondmetal for the wheel rims, and Materialise for components created using fast prototyping.

The styling decisions

Romantic and noble. These two words sum up the styling of the Pininfarina Rolls-Royce Hyperion. The archetype of the special car, an opulent two-seater roadster that conveys the luxury of the Rolls-Royce Drophead Coupe, from which it derives, at the highest figurative and architectural levels. At the same time, it harks back to the past, and the cars of the pre-war period that now populate the world’s most prestigious concours d’elegance.

To repeat the proportions of those unforgettable cars (a short tail end and majestic bonnet that “surges” forward), we had to extend the roof and shorten the rear end. To balance the volumes, the Pininfarina designers tried to achieve soft, fluidly flowing surfaces. The front sports the classic Rolls-Royce grille, which has been slightly inclined. A trapezoid plane creates a more aerodynamic dashboard, while the recessed Bixenon headlights and LED technology convey sportiness and elegance. The spectacular bonnet is underlined by the muscular, taut wings, while the line that embraces the front wheels is drawn back until it disappears into the hood cover, giving a sense of movement even when the car is stationary. This feature is counterbalanced by a small tooth under the door that runs towards the rear wheel. The shape of the rear end recalls Pininfarina’s legendary sports “berlinettas” of the Fifties and Sixties, with their cut-off tails, strongly inclined downwards, with a flat closure borrowed from boat-building.

The interiors were practically unchanged, maintaining the perfect sense of high luxury in the passenger compartment that distinguished the original car. One precious detail of the instrumentation underlines the unique environment: the watch designed specifically for the Pininfarina Rolls-Royce Hyperion by Girard-Perregaux, which can be removed from the dash and attached to a bracelet to be worn on the wrist.

Pininfarina and Girard-Perregaux: the emotion of excellence

Combining the excellence of a watch and a car that are out of the ordinary. This was the goal of the collaboration between Pininfarina and luxury Swiss watchmakers Girard-Perregaux. The meeting of two prestigious names that embody artisan tradition and cutting edge technology has created a refined timepiece with a sophisticated mechanism. Girard-Perregaux have personalised one of their sophisticated watches, the Vintage 1945 Tourbillion with gold bridge, for the Pininfarina Rolls-Royce Hyperion. Thanks to an ingenious anchorage system, this timepiece can be mounted on the car’s dashboard, or removed from its mount to slip on to its owner’s wrist.

The pure lines of the white gold case, inspired by a model of 1945, contain a gold bridge tourbillon. This mechanism, which is faithful to the original design created by Constant Girard- Perregaux in the 19th century, stands out for its complexity: only an expert watchmaker could assemble the cage that weighs just 0.3 grams, carrying no fewer than 72 elements. The automatic movement was painstakingly built by the company.

The Vintage 1945 Tourbillion with gold bridge blends perfectly with the Pininfarina Rolls-Royce Hyperion, starting from the colours of the face which match those of the bodywork. A sophisticated “spring-ball” system allows it to be extracted from the leather bracelet so that it can be mounted on the dashboard in a support in the shape of a whirlwind, or tourbillon, the hallmark of the Girard-Perregaux brand. This unique piece suggests the link between the worlds of prestige cars and outstanding watchmaking. Cult objects that transcend their function to arouse emotions that are constantly renewed.

Pininfarina and Girard-Perregaux: outstanding watches and cars share numerous common denominators: the notion of time, a fundamental factor of motor racing; increasingly refined techniques; and ever-present passion. In these two worlds, admiration for historical models goes hand in hand with the appeal of the most recent performances; the classic design shares the stage with daring concepts; cutting-edge technologies and noble materials are the key words of every successful innovation. High standards of quality, beauty, power and perfection even in the smallest detail, are essential components.

Girard-Perregaux bases its relationship with Pininfarina on a common conceptual approach, underpinned by a striving for excellence, emotions and beauty. And when passion encounters technical capabilities, the dream takes shape, producing the most refined mechanical structures.

Back in June, Pininfarina released a teaser image of its latest work called the Pininfarina Hyperion. And now – just days before its official debut at the Pebble Beach Concours, a side-view image of the car has popped up online.

What we know so far that this is a one-off model built for some ultra-rich man. Based on the Rolls-Royce Drophead Phantom Coupe, the Hyperion is powered by the same 6.75L V12 from the Drophead producing 450 horsepower. Estimated price tag is £1million (almost $2 million USD).

Hang on a little longer - we’ll get all the images and details in 5 days.

2008 Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe:

Source: AutoExpress

The CEO of Italian design and contract manufacturer Pininfarina, Andrea Pininfarina, died Thursday morning in a motorcycle accident. Pininfarina, 51, died after his Vespa motorcycle collided with a car while he was riding over to the company’s design and r&d center in Cambiano.

Giuliano Salmi, the 78-year-old driver of the car was taken to the hospital after suffering from shock. Pininfarina, the family controlled company, is currently in the middle of a crucial restructuring. News of Adrea’s death heated up market speculation that its ownership could quickly change.

Shares of the company jumped massively in Milan and were soon suspended for excessive gains. Pininfarina recently asked its shareholders for a 100 million euro capital increase in order to reduce growing debts.

The move will cause the Pininfarina family, who currently holds 55 percent of the company’s voting shares, will lose its majority control in the company.

Source: Automotive News (Subscription Required)