Franco Scaglione, “My Father” His Life in the Words of His Daughter Giovanna
As told to Robert Little, Renzo Carbonaro, Vladimir Pajevic and Ulrich Zensen
Copyright: 8 November 2017 All World Rights Reserved
Republished with permissions with changes to suit the format of VeloceToday.com
Part VI: The Zenith of his Career –
Scaglione’s Independent Sixties
While the American titans of automobile design continued from the early 1950s to travel long distances to such places as Torino and Geneva, London and Paris to learn and observe the holy grail of styling trends being introduced by Franco Scaglione, the Japanese did more than just observe his design language. They learned on site!
Giovanna explains:
“Only when he designed the Prince Motors Skyline Sprint 1900 for a Japanese company (presented at Tokyo Auto Show in 1960), the company sent to Italy one of his engineers, Mr. Takeshi Inoue, in order to teach him how my father used to work on a project.
“Mr Takeshi stayed a full year in Italy working side by side with my Babbo in his laboratory (at that time he was no longer working for Bertone). With Inoue we had a good friendship… he used to come by our house for dinner. He spoke with Babbo in English but tried to speak Italian with me and my mother.”
Mr. Takeshi Inoue and Franco Scaglione working together in the designers’ office in Torino. Mr. Inoue had been posted by his employer Prince Motor Company to learn from the master how the art of design was realized.
“Mr Inoue went back to Tokyo when the full-sized wooden shape (built by Ditta Raniero in Orbassano) was completed and delivered to Japan. Original drawings were delivered directly to the address of the Company in Japan by air mail.”
The original Skyline Sprint 1900 designed by Scaglione was spotted 12 years ago still hidden away by Nissan.Mr. Inoue remained at Nissan and was later involved in the creation of the Skyline series until his retirement.
Skyline Sprint, 1963
“Anyway, Babbo was always happy to give advice and lend support to everybody who asked him,” said Giovanna.
Scaglione was an extrovert personality, cheerful and he loved the company of other people, and always making himself available to help others.
But by the opposite token he didn’t like to show himself off and to be the center of attention, as others around him were accustomed to doing.
So, it could be said among whose people who didn’t know him that he was an arrogant extrovert and yet others would consider his gentle, helpful demeanor to be that of an introvert.
Did we almost forget that the ATS was also a Scaglione design?
ATS stand at Paris in 1963. Note the hood ridges. Photo by and courtesy of Graham Gauld. Click on photo for the story of the ATS.
Efforts initiated by a Scaglione historian have thus far proved unsuccessful in locating Mr. Inoue whose company Prince Motors was absorbed by Nissan of Japan.
During the remainder of his career, Scaglione worked alone, without collaborative associates and not again offering himself as a mentor or guidance teacher.
Battista (Pinin) Farina and Nuccio Bertone gathered the accolades, but it was men like Franco Scaglione who actually put pen to paper and created the beautiful objects that we still admire. He was a creative genius, and should be ranked with Gandini and Giugiaro.
That is amazing. I wonder whether Inoue is a common name in Tokyo. Teruko Inoue is a strong Alfa enthusiast, and she used to run an Alfa workshop in Tokyo named “Terrific”. She even bought a 4 x 4 1900 Matta from Keith Martin. I have been unable to re-establish contact with her (nor her son) so I cannot ask if Tekeshi was related.
Peter
The headline for Part 6 should be ‘Giovanna’, not the male Giovanni
Got it, thanks Dave!