VW Reportedly Looking To Sell Italdesign

Some of the greatest road car designs of the past half a century have come from the studios of Italdesign, one of the most respected of all the major Italian design houses. For the past 15 years, the company has been under the stewardship of the Volkswagen Group, specifically Lamborghini and Audi, but now, it’s reportedly up for sale.

Automotive News Europe reports that Volkswagen could be looking to offload the company as part of cost-cutting efforts as it looks to shore up its finances. Per the story, a meeting is scheduled with company workers at its headquarters in Turin today (12 May).

Founded in 1968 by Giorgetto Giugiaro and Aldo Mantovani, Italdesign immediately established itself as one of the greats of Italian car design, alongside companies like Pininfarina and Bertone (the latter where Giugiaro had spent a six-year stint in the 1960s).

As well as crafting some staggering wedgy concept cars in its early like the Bizzarrini Manta and Maserati Boomerang, some of the styling house’s noteworthy early production cars included the Alfa Romeo Alfasud, Series 1 Lotus Esprit and perhaps most notably, the Mk1 Volkswagen Golf.

Italdesign arguably really hit its stride in the 1980s, with a further impressive run of concept cars plus enduring road car designs like the BMW M1, original Fiat Panda and DeLorean DMC-12.

Over the ensuing decades, Italdesign’s projects would be as diverse as the Daewoo Lanos and the Maserati MC12, but the era of car companies turning to independent design houses for mass-production models was clearly coming to a close.

In 2010, VW, via Lamborghini, took a 90.1 per cent stake in Italdesign with a view to leveraging its design and development expertise in the group’s cars. Since then, the company has designed a number of concept cars, but its roadgoing products have been limited to extremely low-volume cars, like the Nissan GT-R50 and Audi R8-based Italdesign Zerouno.

It’s not clear what the reported sale means for the company going forward, or whether any potential buyers are already lined up, but hopefully it’ll go to an owner that’ll continue to ensure it’s designing cars for years to come.