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1979 Isuzu Asso di Fiori (ItalDesign)

Isuzu Asso di Fiori (ItalDesign), 1979
Isuzu Asso di Fiori (ItalDesign), 1979
Isuzu Asso di Fiori (ItalDesign), 1979
Isuzu Asso di Fiori (ItalDesign), 1979
Isuzu Asso di Fiori (ItalDesign), 1979
Isuzu Asso di Fiori (ItalDesign), 1979
Isuzu Asso di Fiori (ItalDesign), 1979
Isuzu Asso di Fiori (ItalDesign), 1979
Isuzu Asso di Fiori (ItalDesign), 1979
Isuzu Asso di Fiori (ItalDesign), 1979
Isuzu Asso di Fiori (ItalDesign), 1979
Isuzu Asso di Fiori (ItalDesign), 1979
Isuzu Asso di Fiori (ItalDesign), 1979 - Photo: Rainer Schlegelmilch
Isuzu Asso di Fiori (ItalDesign), 1979 - Photo: Rainer Schlegelmilch
Isuzu Asso di Fiori (ItalDesign), 1979 - Photo: Rainer Schlegelmilch
Isuzu Asso di Fiori (ItalDesign), 1979 - Photo: Rainer Schlegelmilch
Isuzu Asso di Fiori (ItalDesign), 1979 - Photo: Rainer Schlegelmilch
Isuzu Asso di Fiori (ItalDesign), 1979 - Photo: Rainer Schlegelmilch
Isuzu Asso di Fiori (ItalDesign), 1979 - Photo: Rainer Schlegelmilch
Isuzu Asso di Fiori (ItalDesign), 1979 - Photo: Rainer Schlegelmilch
Isuzu Asso di Fiori (ItalDesign), 1979 - Photo: Rainer Schlegelmilch
Isuzu Asso di Fiori (ItalDesign), 1979 - Photo: Rainer Schlegelmilch
Isuzu Asso di Fiori (ItalDesign), 1979 - Photo: Rainer Schlegelmilch
Isuzu Asso di Fiori (ItalDesign), 1979 - Photo: Rainer Schlegelmilch
Isuzu Asso di Fiori (ItalDesign), 1979 - Photo: Rainer Schlegelmilch
Isuzu Asso di Fiori (ItalDesign), 1979 - Photo: Rainer Schlegelmilch
Isuzu Asso di Fiori (ItalDesign), 1979 - Photo: Rainer Schlegelmilch
Isuzu Asso di Fiori (ItalDesign), 1979 - Photo: Rainer Schlegelmilch
Isuzu Asso di Fiori (ItalDesign), 1979 - Photo: Rainer Schlegelmilch
Isuzu Asso di Fiori (ItalDesign), 1979 - Photo: Rainer Schlegelmilch
Isuzu Asso di Fiori (ItalDesign), 1979 - Photo: Rainer Schlegelmilch
Isuzu Asso di Fiori (ItalDesign), 1979 - Photo: Rainer Schlegelmilch
Isuzu Asso di Fiori (ItalDesign), 1979 - Photo: Rainer Schlegelmilch
Isuzu Asso di Fiori (ItalDesign), 1979 - Photo: Rainer Schlegelmilch
Isuzu Asso di Fiori (ItalDesign), 1979 - Interior - Photo: Rainer Schlegelmilch
Isuzu Asso di Fiori (ItalDesign), 1979 - Interior - Photo: Rainer Schlegelmilch
Isuzu Asso di Fiori (ItalDesign), 1979 - Interior - Photo: Rainer Schlegelmilch
Isuzu Asso di Fiori (ItalDesign), 1979 - Interior - Photo: Rainer Schlegelmilch
Isuzu Asso di Fiori (ItalDesign), 1979 - Interior
Isuzu Asso di Fiori (ItalDesign), 1979 - Interior
Isuzu Asso di Fiori (ItalDesign), 1979 - Design sketch
Isuzu Asso di Fiori (ItalDesign), 1979 - Design sketch
Isuzu Asso di Fiori (ItalDesign), 1979 - Design sketch
Isuzu Asso di Fiori (ItalDesign), 1979 - Design sketch
Images: ItalDesign
Rating:  28    -7    +35
Isuzu Asso di Fiori (Ace of Clubs)
It is the ideal successor of Isuzu 117 Coupé, designed in 1966, it's "the fifth Copernican revolution" by Giugiaro, that will give birth to Isuzu Piazza.

The only condition imposed by the producer is the use of Gemini 1800 platform, Japanese version of Chevrolet Corvette.

Italdesign stand at Geneva Motor Show in 1979 was overcrowded : everybody is curious to see the news and Asso di Fiori does not disappoint the expectations.

It's a real revolution for the car, the fifth one designed by Giugiaro: in 1960 the first cowling with incorporated lights (Alfa Romeo 2000 Sprint), in 1964 the first stuck windows (Alfa Romeo Canguro), in 1973 the first painted mudguard (Asso di Picche, 1973) and in 1974 the first rear door cut.

Asso di Fiori great news are represented by the removal of external drip (substituted with a gutter-pipe in the door pillar gasket) the windows close to the bodywork, total doors and rear doors. All of them integrated and technically producible.

All these solutions will be adopted for production cars from now go on: the 1987 French Revue Automobile registers the fact the 1/3 of cars produced from 1981 and 1987 are designed with total doors like Asso di Fiori.


First there was the Isuzu 117 coupe, designed in 1966 by Giugiaro at Ghia and developed by Ital Styling, and mass produced from October 1968 onwards.

Then the Isuzu management decided to entrust Giugiaro with the design of this car’s successor, giving him a completely free hand except for one condition, to use the platform of the Gemini 1800 (Japanese version of the American Chevrolet Chevette platform). The manufacturer would not interfere with the design development phase, but would wait to view the finished prototype to decide on mass production follow-ups.

The result was the Asso di Fiori. Here, through the complete faith placed in him by the manufacturer and his own internal need for a new approach to shapes having come into a head, Giugiaro unleashed his creativity. Italdesign’s stand at the Geneva Motor Show was perennially swelling with people: journalists, designers, and manufacturers, all came to see what Giugiaro had "been up to" this time. And they weren’t disappointed: the Asso di Fiori was his fifth "Copernican revolution", after the radiator grille with incorporated headlights (Alfa Romeo 2000 Sprint, 1960), bonded windows (Alfa Romeo Canguro 1964), built-in painted bumpers (Asso di Picche, 1973), and cut of the hatch wrapping onto the sides (Volkswagen Golf, 1974).

Exterior drip channels eliminated, all flush-fitting windows, and limousine doors and rear hatch are the three ideas that had already been glimpsed at individually both on his earlier prototypes and, partially, on other cars. What was extraordinary about them here was that they were all worked in together and were technically feasible. Montovani had believed at once in these radical choices of Giugiaro’s and gave it his all to make them mass producible. Needless to say, the Isuzu management appreciated the car. They literally fell in love with it, and the Show prototype was flown directly to Japan. Within forty-eight hours, still at the Show, they were given the "OK" to go ahead with the car’s development, entrusted to Montovani and his team of engineers, and were asked to speed up the times to the max.

Talking about the Piazza (as it was to be dubbed in mass production) to the Italdesign engineers means rekindling a nightmare. Urged by Montovani and by the Japanese who out of their enormous respect for Giugiaro, requested that every modification be approved in writing, even the substitution of the diameter of the washer or the movement of a switch on the seat, they ran non-stop for almost two years.

Nevertheless, this effort would bear its fruits: at the Geneva Motor Show of 1981, exactly 24 months from the Asso di Fiori prototype, Italdesign showed the first pre-production model of the Piazza. Regular production was to get off the ground two months later, in May. In recent history, these times practically set a record.

What this "Copernican revolution" says in shape deserves thorough analysis, both of Giugiaro’s motivations and of the influence it was to have on mass production cars, so vast and far-reaching it may even surpass that of the Golf. Considering 146 cars built from 1981 onwards cited in the 1987 catalog of Revue Automobile, something of a "Bible" in the car world, it turns out that 48, equal to 33 per cent, use flush doors like the Asso di Fiori and, of these 48, only 9 came from Giugiaro’s pen. The Turin designer’s approach to this new period in shape grew from the combination of aerodynamic demands, that called for flowing surfaces and smooth connections, and his need for a strict simplicity in graphic touches.

The outside drip channels, source of considerable aerodynamic turbulence especially around the A-pillar, were eliminated and substituted by a gutter built into the door rabbet strip. An ingenious solution, easy to imagine theoretically, but that requires arduous design and testing to make effective.

Freed from the protuberance of the drip channel, the roof became a clean surface. The strip (also a gutter) had to be lodged on the connection between roof and side along the entire length of the door cut, as well as being ideally extended onto the A-pillar. This led Giugiaro to design a door where the sheet metal wraps round and covers the B-pillar and roof/side connection, thus giving rise to integral (otherwise referred to as wrapping or limousine) doors. The same treatment was given to the hatch, which covers the C-pillar, bending around the glass of the second back window. Here too, a guttering strip. As far as shape is concerned, Giugiaro came to this choice through the need to simplify the graphic breakdown of the form. Up to then, A-pillars had been characterized by six elements: Windshield seal, A-pillar, drip channel, door cut, door frame, side window seal. If the windows called for the addition of trim strips, the number then grew to eight. With limousine doors, it was visually reduced to three: windshield strip, A-pillar, which is part of the door (the door cut disappears from view because the door frame "knocks" directly against the rubber of the strip), and the side window strip.

Giugiaro’s need for severe geometrical forms led him also to "hide" the other two necessary cuts on the car: those of the engine hood and hatch. 80mm beneath the belt-line, the designer drew a slight groove, painted red, that wraps totally around the car. The cut to the engine hood (that folds over onto the side) and that of the far end of the hatch "fall" into this groove and drop from sight. The result is a car boasting an impeccably clean shape. In the side view, the B-pillar creates a continuous glazed surface area that, thanks to the highly elongated back side window, gives decided rake and freshness to the whole.

The very penetrating front end proposes an unusual lighting feature: fixed headlights, faired by movable lid so that the lights can be flashed during the day without having to move the lid or fit out the car with additional lights. The lids and related motor are built onto the hood.

Standing out in the rather classically laid out interior is the steering wheel-instrumentation unit, quite a courageous move. The aim was to enable the driver to operate all the controls by keeping a thumb grip on the wheel and moving just the other fingers like on a piano keyboard. The controls housed on the two satellites that pivot on a vertical axis and may be adjusted to each particular drivers build. The steering wheel is fitted with two thumb rests on the inside of the rim, which make for a safer grip and a relaxing support during long journeys.


Сначала был Исузу 117 купе, спроектированый в 1966 году Джорджетто Джуджаро, массовое производство которого началось в октябре 1968 года.

Затем руководство Исузу решило поручить Джуджаро спроектировать преемника этого автомобиля, дав ему полную свободу, если бы не одно условие, использовать платформу Джемини 1800 (японская версия платформы американцкого Шевролет Шеветт). Изготовитель не влезал в стадию развития проекта, и ждал представления законченного прототипа для принятия решения о массовом производстве.

Результатом был Ассо ди Фиори. Стенд Италдизайна на Мотор Шоу в Женеве был постоянно забит людьми: журналистами, дизайнерами, и изготовителями. Все приходили посмотреть на то, что же Джуджаро "изобрел" на сей раз. И они не были разочарованы: Ассо ди Фиори был его пятым "открытием" после решетки радиатора с встроеными фарами (Альфа Ромео 2000 Спринт, 1960 года), "сливающихся" окон (Альфа Ромео Кангуро 1964 года), окрашеных интегрированных бамперов (Ассо ди Пикчи, 1973 года), и необычной задней двери (Фольксваген Гольф, 1974 года).

Снаружи кузов не имел каналов пропускающих воду, все окна были установлены заподлицо с кузовом, плюс длинные, как у лимузина, двери - три идеи, которые уже мелькали на его более ранних прототипах и частично на других автомобилях.

Монтовани верил в эти идеи Джуджаро и дал ему все, чтобы внедрить их в массовое производство. Само собой разумеется руководство Исузу высоко оценило автомобиль. Они буквально влюбились в него, и прототип немедленно прилетел в Японию. В пределах сорока восьми часов, все еще на Шоу, руководство дало "добро" на то чтобы продолжить развитие автомобиля порученное Монтовани и его группе инженеров, и попросили сделать это в максимально короткие сроки.

Говоря о Пиацце (поскольку так должен был называться автомобиль находясь в массовом производстве) инженеры Италдизайна намеревались разжечь интерес к автомобилю. Монтовани и Японцы, несмотря на огромное уважение к Джуджаро, требовали от него чтобы каждая модификация (даже замена диаметра омывателя или переключателя движения на сидении) была одобрена в письменной форме.

Несмотря ни на что, все эти усилия принесли плоды: на Женевском Мотор Шоу в 1981 году, спустя ровно 24 месяца после премьеры прототипа Ассо ди Фиори, специалисты Италдизайна показали первую предпроизводственную модель Пиаццы. Массовое производство которой должно было начаться двумя месяцами позже, в мае месяце. В недавней истории, эти затраты времени на создание такого автомобиля были практически рекордом.
Source: www.italdesign.it; Giugiaro Italdesign Catalog Raisonne 1959-1987, Volume Two via www.isuzuperformance.com
Coachbuilder: ItalDesign
1968 Alfa Romeo 33 Iguana (ItalDesign), 1968 Bizzarrini Manta (ItalDesign), 1969 Abarth 1600 (ItalDesign), 1970 Porsche Tapiro (ItalDesign), 1971 Alfa Romeo Caimano (ItalDesign), 1971 Volkswagen Karmann Cheetah (ItalDesign), 1972 Lotus Esprit (ItalDesign), 1972 Maserati Boomerang (ItalDesign), 1973 Audi Karmann Asso di Picche (ItalDesign), 1974 Hyundai Pony Coupe (ItalDesign), 1974 ItalDesign Medici 1, 1974 Maserati Coupe (ItalDesign), 1976 Alfa Romeo New York Taxi (ItalDesign), 1976 BMW Karmann Asso di Quadri (ItalDesign), 1976 ItalDesign Medici 2, 1977 BMW M1 (ItalDesign), 1978 ItalDesign M8, 1978 Lancia Megagamma (ItalDesign), 1979 Isuzu Asso di Fiori (ItalDesign), 1980 Fiat Panda 4x4 Offroader/Strip (ItalDesign), 1980 Lancia Medusa (ItalDesign), 1981 DeLorean DMC 12 (ItalDesign), 1982 ItalDesign Capsula, 1982 Lamborghini Marco Polo (ItalDesign), 1982 Lancia Orca (ItalDesign), 1983 Renault Gabbiano (ItalDesign), 1984 Ford Maya (ItalDesign), 1984 ItalDesign Marlin, 1984 ItalDesign Together, 1984 Lotus Etna (ItalDesign), 1984 Saab 9000 (ItalDesign), 1985 Ford Maya II EM (ItalDesign), 1985 Ford Maya II ES (ItalDesign), 1986 ItalDesign Machimoto, 1986 ItalDesign Orbit, 1986 Oldsmobile Incas (ItalDesign), 1988 ItalDesign Asgard, 1988 ItalDesign Aspid, 1988 ItalDesign Aztec, 1989 Seat Proto T (ItalDesign), 1989 Subaru SVX (ItalDesign), 1990 Bugatti ID 90 (ItalDesign), 1990 Jaguar Kensington (ItalDesign), 1990 Seat Proto C (ItalDesign), 1990 Seat Proto TL (ItalDesign), 1991 BMW Nazca C2 (ItalDesign), 1991 BMW Nazca M12 (ItalDesign), 1992 BMW Columbus (ItalDesign), 1992 Fiat Cinquecento (ItalDesign), 1992 ItalDesign Biga, 1993 BMW Nazca C2 Spider (ItalDesign), 1993 Bugatti EB 112 (ItalDesign), 1993 ItalDesign Lucciola, 1994 Fiat Firepoint (ItalDesign), 1994 Lexus Landau (ItalDesign), 1995 Daewoo Bucrane (ItalDesign), 1995 Lamborghini Cala (ItalDesign), 1996 ItalDesign Formula 4, 1996 ItalDesign Formula Hammer, 1996 ItalDesign Formula Legram, 1997 Alfa Romeo Scighera (ItalDesign), 1997 Alfa Romeo Scighera GT (ItalDesign), 1997 Volkswagen W12 Syncro (ItalDesign), 1998 Bugatti EB 118 (ItalDesign), 1998 ItalDesign Structura, 1998 Volkswagen W12 Roadster (ItalDesign), 1999 Bugatti EB 18/3 Chiron (ItalDesign), 1999 Bugatti EB 218 (ItalDesign), 2000 ItalDesign Touareg, 2000 Maserati Buran (ItalDesign), 2000 Seat Salsa (ItalDesign), 2001 Aston Martin 2020 (ItalDesign), 2001 Maserati 320S (ItalDesign), 2001 Volkswagen W12 Coupe Nardo (ItalDesign), 2002 Alfa Romeo Brera Concept (ItalDesign), 2002 Volkswagen Tarek Concept (ItalDesign), 2003 ItalDesign Moray, 2003 Maserati Kubang GT Wagon (ItalDesign), 2004 Alfa Romeo Visconti (ItalDesign), 2004 Toyota Alessandro Volta (ItalDesign), 2005 Alfa Romeo 159 (ItalDesign), 2005 Ferrari GG50 (ItalDesign), 2005 Mitsubishi Nessie (ItalDesign), 2006 Ford Mustang (ItalDesign), 2007 ItalDesign VAD.HO, 2008 ItalDesign Quaranta, 2008 SsangYong C200 (ItalDesign), 2009 ItalDesign Frazer-Nash Namir, 2010 Proton EMAS (ItalDesign), 2011 Volkswagen Gо! (ItalDesign), 2011 Volkswagen Tex (ItalDesign), 2011 Volkswagen Up! Azzurra Sailing Team (ItalDesign), 2012 ItalDesign Brivido, 2013 Audi Nanuk quattro (ItalDesign), 2013 ItalDesign Parcour, 2014 ItalDesign Clipper, 2015 ItalDesign GEA, 2016 ItalDesign GTZero, 2018 ItalDesign Zerouno Duerta, 2019 ItalDesign DaVinci, 2020 Nissan GT-R50 (ItalDesign), 2020 Voyah i-Land (ItalDesign), 2022 DeLorean Alpha5 (ItalDesign), 2022 Deus Vayanne (ItalDesign), 2023 ItalDesign Climb-E
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