1952 212 Vignale

   Giovanni Michelotti had a great imagination. It’s particularly evident in his one-point perspective concept sketches of this car.  He was seeing a bright and exuberant future after a dark decade in Italy.  His designs, realized through the masterful light steel fabrication technique of Alfredo Vignale, were a revelation. Perhaps this design proved a bit too revelatory for Enzo Ferrari.
   Ferrari had sold less than a hundred road cars to this point. And they were a very secondary consideration for Ferrari, as is obvious from the complete lack of driver and passenger consideration for comfort. For the most part they had been Colombo based small blocks. First came the 166 Carrozzeria Touring ‘designed by the wind’ Barchetta.  Then Michelotti & Vignale gave dynamic expression to the 195 Inters and Exports. Defining in the public mind the early Ferrari Berlinetta from sports page and rare period sports car journal. A few of Lampredi’s large displacement F1 engines, in the early 340 edition, had evolved down to road cars. These tended to be long on engine and short on accommodation. All seemed experimental.  Sheet metal stretched across mechanicals, looking to define contemporary performance in the absolute. 
   Here Michelotti took that great leap of faith into atomic age optimism.  Who else but Vignale could have fabricated those eyebrow front bumpers and delicate rear fender fins with trunk height bumper? It fired the imagination, of both public and critic.