The Battista mixes Pininfarina heritage with 1,900bhp of electric power... a godsend
But elsewhere, there’s talk of creating “the first car to make the world love electric vehicles” – acknowledgement that, unless you’re one of Elon’s Tesla evangelists (a Muskovite?), the fast-forwarding electric revolution has yet to deliver a car you’d stick on your metaphorical bedroom wall. Unless you dig Croatian start-up Rimac or China’s NIO EP9. So, is the Battista The One?
This is where the Pininfarina part should come in handy, because the history this name can leverage is pretty much the history of the car itself. Certainly car design. With just one exception, every Ferrari series production car to have emerged from Maranello between 1951 and 2008 wore the funky little Pininfarina imprint on its body somewhere (Ferrari’s in-house Centro Stile, recently installed in an amazing new building, has been in charge for the past decade.) That’s an unrivalled aesthetic winning streak.
And there’s romance. Battista ‘Pinin’ Farina was the youngest son in a family of 11 kids, and proved precociously talented in the pioneering days of the automobile. He began working in his brother Giovanni’s body shop at 12, and as a teenager met Fiat founder Giovanni Agnelli and Henry Ford.
Esta historia es de la edición April 2019 de BBC TopGear India.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor ? Conectar
Esta historia es de la edición April 2019 de BBC TopGear India.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor? Conectar
The Next Great Family MPV?
“Whoa, that’s a nice-looking Minivan!” Said no one ever.
MG COMET
A LOT OF PEOPLE HAD THOUGHT THIS CAR TO BE COMPLETELY useless when it came out.
BMW i7
WHEN THE i7 PULLED INTO MY GARAGE AND PARKED ITSELF next to the Mercedes EQA and the MG Comet, it just struck me that this is how the future will be.
SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP
McLaren's finest faces off Corvette's nat-asp swansong as the Brits and the Americans square up... in a Spanish playground. Expect fireworks
NEXT LEVEL
Thought the 750S was fast? The McLaren P1's successor - the W1 is ready to spread its wings
MANUAL LABOUR
Two cars from opposite ends of the performance spectrum with one crucial thing in common...
PRO VS SLOW
At last, we have our hands on the Valkyrie. But is its performance only accessible for the pros... or can anyone enjoy it?
THE OUTBURST OF OFFROADING
The high-volume market is a point of interest for all manufacturers here in India.
THE BATTLE OF CRUISER-COMMUTERS
WHO DOES THE BEST COMMUTER WORK WHILE NOT BEING A TRUE COMMUTER MOTORCYCLE?
LEAVING EVERYTHING ON THE TRACK
FT. YMRP ROUND 3 From being second, I DNF'd from the race on the last corner