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The F12 is such a beautiful car that it MUST be designed by PF

 

This discussion about who was responsible for the F12 is hilarious. I think we can all agree that if Ferrari Design were heavily to credit for this design, there is no way that the Pininfarina badge would be on the car. Hence why it’s not on the TDF.

 

The reason this looks so good is because it’s reminiscent of an F12

 

My statements come from a pleasant conversation I had with Manzoni, who also worked on the SA Aperta in 2010. I have no doubt that Andrea Militello worked on the car. He moved from Pininfarina to Ferrari Design when Manzoni received the task of forming an internal Style Center. And others like him too, Carlo Palazzani and so on.

Sergio Pininfarina was a member of the board of directors and there were several issues at stake.
But it's not important. I find the F12 to be one of the nicest and most organic Ferraris of recent years. Only Monza reached another level.

However, there are other style proposals from Pininfarina linked to the F150 project which fortunately were soon discarded. You can notice the pininfarina badge on the low part of the sill
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There is NO doubt that the F12 Berlinetta was designed by Pininfarina.
That's why my Verde Seabird F12 #228775 had two PF badges in the interior.

Marcel Massini

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Ol’ Manzoni has a very obvious style and the F12 ain’t it.

 

He really likes the F 12 and finds it almost perfect. The problem lies elsewhere. In fact, when you design a Ferrari, you really have to try to create the shape before the details, and not the other way around. You also have to know how to analyze what a Ferrari should be (fluidity, timelessness,...) He did perfectly well with Monza

 

He don’t get nuance. He designs heavy handed, matching corners.

 

Give it up.

 

F12 people are on some kind of juice. This is clearly 812 derived. The angles of the front hood/bonnet to the valance are straight 812, the lack of visual weight between the a pillar and the front wheels is 812 and definitely not F12, the low-set engine and hood/bonnet, the sides sculpted from the bottom of the doors, the angles at the rear fascia viewed from the front (as this render is) are similar to 812, the headlight curving in towards the bottom. AI is clearly taking the existing design and developing it, which is logical.

 

I think it makes perfect sense. There was a point in time when the contract with PF ended. Until that time, the badge had to be on the cars. But in building up to Ferrari Design taking on the duty they would have had to build the team and set up everything. So what do those people do while that is happening? They weren’t twiddling their thumbs. We already know that final sign off remains with Ferrari and always has. Ferrari would already be committed to leaving PF and no CEO would commit to a new design director and team, then ignore his views in favour of the outgoing. Remember, he started work in January 2010 with Ferrari. With new people coming into post with a different view to PF, guess what’s going to happen. F12 was first shown at Geneva in 2012 - 27 months after Manzoni started as Ferrari Design director. Seems perfectly plausible to me. In fact, I’ve never thought about it before but it’s rather a likely scenario if you know how senior management in companies works. What Design Director, 27 months into the job is not going to have a strong say about the halo product? Not saying it’s true but it makes perfect sense and is hard to see that with Manzoni in position, he and his team wouldn’t have had a strong say at the very least about how the F12 looked. Only Manzoni and the design team know the truth of course. If he claims it was him, why would he lie? What’s to gain? He has a list of seminal designs credited to Ferrari Design, such as LaF, Monza, SP3 plus others. These people are precious. The last thing they do is claim others’ work as their own unless they believe it is. They more likely criticise it because they don’t ‘recognise’ it and it’s in their interest to demean what went before to enhance their own work. What a funny and completely irrelevant debate. But really very funny. We’ve had a bellyful of PF can do no wrong (but they really did over the years) and Manzoni can do no right (and he clearly has - sales figures don’t lie and all studies done in the auto industry say appearance is the strongest vehicle feature that motivates sales).

 

This makes abundant sense. And I’m laughing again.

In the UK we have a law called TUPE. It means that when a function is transferred from one company to another, or even within companies, you have an obligation to take on the staff that were doing the function previously. There are certain things that help; if they don’t wish to make the move, if they cannot relocate and relocation is needed, if there were 10 people before and you now only need 5 etc. But what isot says seems quite normal. Ferrari was a big account for PF. With responsibility transferring, so would a number of the people. That would amount to sensible business practice for both PF and Ferrari and may well have been lawful too. Again, those suggesting PF is perfect and Manzoni is terrible, like so many things in life, make a gross over-simplification.

 

Turns out, Militello also worked for Manzoni since 2010 and was discussed here 5 years ago by Ohno, an important contributor to this thread.


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Some interesting things about the bottom sketch above. You can already see the 812. The sketch idea obviously led to the air bridge pioneered in the F12 but the fully scalloped sides were the original thought. Also, the uterus idea looked really good in the left-hand sketch. At least the shape of it. Tightened up the rear and emphasised the exhausts and wheel mass. But in execution it was much less successful IMO.

 

The last couple of pages has resurrected the F12 vs 812 designs battle- which has raged for what seems decades but is really only a few years running. My hope is Manzoni takes the best from both designs and adds something new(Roma-nesque ?Monza? Or something completely different?) and manages to get all the details right.
Also clearly the NSA/CIA/MI5-6/German BND/Swiss FIS-AIS etc are holding back on the super high definition satellite pictures of the new uncamoflaged F167 and some director of one of these agencies has a poster of it up on the wall of his top secret office while his agents monitor this website to keep it devoid of pictures of the real thing…


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This same discussion about the laurels of the F12 B's design, I remember, last time it happened here on Ferrarichat was in 2019 and curiously, many of the participants are the same. As no one will certainly change their opinion, it seems to me that the most sensible thing to do and what will be written for posterity is that the design of the F12 B was a collaboration between the Ferrari design center and the Pininfarina house. As much as Manzoni has suggested over the years in interviews that he is the creator of the F12B, any observer even remotely familiar with the lines of modern Ferrari GTs realizes that the man who designed the 812 SF could never have been the same who designed the F12 B. This does not invalidate the fact that Manzoni is a genius and that some of his creations were extraordinary, but one thing is certain: the F12 B does not carry his DNA. It could be that now with the F167 Manzoni changes the DNA and surprises us with his genius.

 

If I’m being honest, I think both F12 and 812 are decent designs. Both have issues. The F12 uterus divides opinion. The 812 rear end is too fussy for some. But both have very firm supporters. This is a good thing. History will decide which design is more highly respected in future, but for now I just hope that the F167 is a worthy beautiful, aggressive and instantly recognisable forward thinking Ferrari V12.

 

The “typical old discussion” in the thread before a big reveal (= F167).
Well, unfortunately i (and nobody else of us?) wasn't there when the F12 Berlinetta was designed. If i had sharpened A. Militello's pencil while he was working, perhaps I could tell you a little more...
But let me put it this way: Would Pininfarina be less famous without the F12 Berlinetta?
Of course not. This company has created so many design milestones in its history that this one vehicle doesn't really matter (as great as the F12 Berlinetta may be to some of us and for me too).
And should the work of F. Manzoni and his design team only be judged on the F12 Berlinetta? I hope not.
After 14 years of design work by the Centro Stile in Maranello, this question cannot yet be answered conclusively. Let's give it some more time (after decades of successful work done by Pininfarina for Ferrari).
I admire F. Manzoni's commitment: he took over a small design team and expanded it significantly. This was hard work. And it takes courage too to face the legacy of the past. By the way: in our discussion of Pininfarina we all too often forget the work of S. Scaglietti...
But perhaps the new F167 will be another step in the right direction for F. Manzoni and team (the design of the Monza SP1/2 was rightly mentioned here).

Well, I think we all feel it: it's time for the first F167 pictures...

 

I’m not sure you’re right about the DNA. All three cars - 599 (which was the current car at the time of the sketch), F12 and 812 can be seen in the same sketch (below). The 812 is based on all the same key dimensions as the F12 so we already know we’re not talking about a difference in DNA like 308 GTB and 308 GT4.
The rear floating buttress of the 599, the aerobridge of the F12 and the sculpted doors of the 812 are all in the same sketch. Nobody can say there is a huge difference in DNA between 599, F12 and 812. It’s all Ferrari. It’s also clear that Militello’s imprint is on both the F12 and the 812.

I also don’t know why there can be any confusion. F12 is clearly the influence of Manzoni/Militello who both worked for Ferrari from 2010. Militello is already widely acknowledged as the guy who penned the F12, the drawing above shows it very clearly. And he was working under the guidance and approval of Manzoni as indicated by the header on the sketch. It was clearly done after he joined Ferrari from PF and is distinctly different to the PF proposals posted earlier.

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I'll try to be precise, Militello started the F 12 under Pininfarina, and was pretty much done before he got to the style center. The one and only thing Manzoni has modified are the headlights.

 

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In my previous post I had already considered closed, at least on my part, this discussion about who influenced or not, more or less, the design of the F12 B . Meanwhile, I revisited a book that I have kept religiously on my shelf for years and which is the official Ferrari book published with the launch of the F12 Berlinetta. The first of the 64 pages of this book explains the concept of the F12 Berlinetta in less than two lines, which demonstrates a great capacity for synthesis. Beneath that simple description is the signature of Luca Cordero di Montezemolo.
The first reference to the design and styling of the F12 B appears on page 5 (the other is on page 29), which is reproduced in the photo below. It is done in an institutional way, as it should be, and therefore says “The product of the ongoing collaboration between Ferrari Style Center and Pininfarina”. These are the two entities that will remain for posterity as being the co-authors of the design and styling of the F12 Berlinetta, regardless of the greater or lesser collaboration of any individual. However, what will really go down in history is that the F12 Berlinetta as a whole is an exceptional car and today we also know that it is the last Ferrari on which Pininfarina emblems were placed.





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Well, I think I'm not doing anyone an injustice by saying that these beautiful cars were designed by people. It doesn't matter if they are from one brand or another... no one ever mentions them. But any style center is made up of people, often young guys who write a piece of history with each model! it is right to remember them. Brovarone, Scaglione, Spada, Fioravanti, Gandini, Giugiaro, Stephenson, Camardella, Coco, De Silva, Okuyama, Castriota, Bangle, and the guys who made the most recent Ferraris, Russo, Militello, Poulain, Aquitter, Palazzani, De Simone, and of course Flavio Manzoni.

Then there would be all the bodybuilders or “carrozzieri” who carried out a different job before "design" understood as a discipline aimed at "dressing up" cars was codified.

 

Very well said !!!

 

OMG. I’ll take this one