Manta

For the debut at the 1968 Turin Motor Show, Giugiaro built his company's first prototype, the Manta Bizzarrini. As soon as he started its own entrepreneurial venture Giorgetto decided that in addition to departments working on clients' orders, he would also build up a research section for prototypes of his own. As Giugiaro states, a designer definitely needs this back-up to demonstrate his in-house capabilities.

The Manta was built on a chassis that Giotto Bizzarini had "blueprinted" from a Grifo Competizione. The designer immediately started by taking the vehicle's profile to the extreme: a continuous line from the front end to the roof with no break for the valance: the inclination of the windshield stopped at just 15 degrees, despite the effect on interior visibility. This was the first sports MPV with a provocative height of 1,050 mm, which also offered an unusual layout with three seats side by side and a central driving position. From the front, the rounded hood combined with the flat, wide mass clearly demonstrated the inspiration behind the shape of this marine model.

In the 1960s and 1970s, these concept cars, as we would call them now, were “dream cars”, to arouse the interest of the media and stimulate the imagination of a young, enthusiastic public. People's minds were still to some extent anchored in the immediate postwar years, but the need for optimistically designed stimuli was evident, everywhere, and Giugiaro was able to grasp it and feed it.