Pininfarina Group Chairman Paolo Pininfarina Passes Away At 65

Paolo Pininfarina, Chairman, Pininfarina SpA passed away on April 9 at the age of 65. Pininfarina shared the news on its social media handle yesterday and stated that he was surrounded by his wife Ilaria, his mother Giorgia Gianolio, along with his five children on his deathbed. Paolo Pininfarina was the grandson of Battista Pininfarina, designer and founder of the Pininfarina SpA design firm which produced some of the most iconic car designs of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s.

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Born in Turin, Italy in 1958, Paolo Pininfarina was the son of Sergio Pininfarina, who over the course of his lifetime, oversaw many of the firm’s most iconic designs. Paolo Pininfarina pursued mechanical engineering at Politecnico di Torino, before joining the family business in 1982 as a trainee, initially stationed abroad with Cadillac and Honda. He was later appointed a board member of the company. He took charge of the Pininfarina brand as Chairman in 2008 after the death of his brother, Andrea. 

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The Pininfarina Battista was unveiled in 2019

Paolo Pininfarina also oversaw the acquisition of the firm by the Mahindra Group in 2016, in a deal cumulatively valued at $185 million. Mahindra currently holds a 76.06 per cent stake in the firm. In 2019, the brand revealed its creation, the fully electric Battista hypercar. The Battista was the first of the Italian marque's pure-electric luxury cars and came with a 120 kWh battery providing power to four electric motors - one for each wheel - offering a combined output close to 1,874 bhp and 2,300 Nm of peak torque.