Leonardo Fioravanti today turns 80: he was born on January 31, 1938 Happy birthday to the 308 GTB designer, one of the most iconic and good looking Ferrari ever. Picture taken from www.quattroruote.it ciao Image Unavailable, Please Login
Great news item. Today in the new in Holland is that our former queen turned 80 today as well. Happy birthday to both! Sent from my iPhone using FerrariChat.com mobile app
Out of curiosity, is Fioravanti credited with the 328 as well, or was that revision of the 308 the work of another artist?
It is listed in the back of his biography as one of the Ferraris he designed and oversaw. There's no further mention of it in the body text of that book that I can see, though. That period is largely filled with anecdotes about the 288.
As far as I remember, I once read (where?) that he oversaw the redesign, but didn't pen it himself; which, I think (also) is the same for the Testarossa. It has to be said, without any mischevious intent on my part, that (again if my memory, etc...) the 328 was an afterthought: Ferrari originally intended to replace the 308 with a fully new design, by the year 1983 or so, but the launch of the "Testarossa" production, plus that of the 288 GTO, drained the funds available, so it was eventually decided to "face lift" the 308 design. As we all know, the pre-production 328 was the factory built cabriolet, which is numbered out-of-sequence with the "others" 328 (chassis #49543, ZFFXA29A6E0049543) as it was thoroughly tested already in 1984; the perspective of full production of the cabriolet was abandoned when the marketing men decided that it would hurt the "Mondial" cabriolet sales too much. Rgds
If you look at the back of his Cavallino nel Cuore biography, he lists Ferraris designed & overseen and on the opposing page, Ferraris overseen. The 328 is listed on the former & the TR on the latter. I'm sure there are nuances about how deep involvement was or wasn't, but I don't think you can argue too much against his own definition
I'm not so sure this is the way to understand it... I think that it is probably because he considers that he penned the 308 himself, of which the 328 is only a slight very redesign (body panels are exactly the same, dimensionally: you can exchange front and rear fenders, doors, front and rear hood, etc...). But I think that at the time of the first sketches for the 328 - end 1983, he was not designing cars anymore himself, but supervising the team. And the redesign of the 328 is so small - the bumpers, that's about it - that perhaps this redesign has even no father at all. Rgds
Some interior changes are substantial, but I agree he'd have just supervised those. He was heavily involved in management changes at the time, but did seem to devote energy & primary ideas to the 288. I'd guess he was more focused on that than the 328 facelift.
And that was the right thing to do! They should have made more than a measly 272 GTOs, so the price wouldn't be what it is (But I have to say that I'm not a fan of Turbo engines...) Rgds