Andrea Pininfarina (51). Chief Executive of Italian designer Pininfarina, died today (Thursday) in a road accident near Turin.
He was killed while riding his motorcycle to work - apparently after a car crashed into him. Apart from the personal tragedy, the accident comes at a dreadful time for Pininfarina. Like other famous names in the world of car design, Pininfarina is in deep financial trouble, having lost over 100 million euros last year. Car manufacturers are bringing a lot of work back in-house which means designers and contract manufacturers like Bertone and Pininfarina, who used to make money building low volume convertibles and sports cars for the big manufacturers, have much less work to keep their factories busy.