Pininfarina
A common theme running through the reasons why various Pininfarina proposals were not adopted by BLMC was the thorny issue of production costs.
Whatever the other merits of their often forward-thinking proposals, the final decision was usually governed by simple economics. Even designs which were finally adopted, such as that for project ADO16, had to be modified specifically to simplify the tooling process. As former development engineer, Ron Nicholls put it: ‘You could never productionise Farina’s stuff without making lots of changes.’
Project EX234

Project ADO28

Project ADO88

- The cars : Metro Cooper (AKA Monaco) development story - 17 May 2022
- Blog : My life in cars - 16 May 2022
- The converters : Frazer-Tickford Metro - 15 May 2022
Shades of the Pininfarina designed 124 spider and Mario Boano’s wonderful coupe. Look at that big glasshouse and the rear quaterlight and its ventilator. Fact is Fiat as well as Renault survived through Government subsidy- whether that’s a good thing is another matter!
Would be interesting to see if any other images exist for the 1975 Citroën-esque ADO88 supermini proposal by Pininfarina at other angles, as with the Bertone styled Innocenti Mini can easily see the Pininfarina ADO88 proposal being upscaled to an Allegro sized car.
Pininfarina did lots of design work for Austin / Morris. The A60 and A40 of the late ’50s were both Farina work, as was the 1100 and hardtop of the MGB GT.