[perl4ever]

What I thought of when I saw this was not the bodywork of Italian cars, but the rest of the engineering that you don't see until you look underneath.

I was really struck by the chassis of, for instance, 90s Ferraris, when I first saw a picture. They look so primitive, like something from the 60s or earlier, compared to a vehicle made by one of the big Japanese or American companies.

My impression is that until recently, the really prestigious brands that made super expensive cars were paradoxically impoverished themselves, so had to make severe tradeoffs in engineering and development. The only way to compensate was by racing and making beautiful sheet metal. I watched a Doug DeMuro video on an 80s Lamborghini and up close, it was just weird, almost like a kit car.

Nowadays, Ferrari is an expanding public company, and probably suppliers can give small car makers parts that are more on the level of the big companies.

I assume that Lamborghini no longer has to use Nissan headlights due to lack of resources to develop their own.

[King-Aaron]

> I assume that Lamborghini no longer has to use Nissan headlights due to lack of resources to develop their own.

Note on this, Lamborghini is now owned by the Volkswagen/Audi Group, so while they don't use nissan parts any more, basically every component bears a VW or Audi logo

[smackeyacky]

It was pretty common in the 1960s, 70s and 80s for the supercar makers to freely use parts from Alfa Romeo or Lancia or Fiat. Door handles, switches, rear view mirrors, vent outlets, headlights, interior lights, sometimes even tail lights and indicators although these were sometimes disguised. The door handles on a Dino were designed for the Alfa Spider.

Its only in the relative recent past that Ferrari or Lamborghini created their own minor bits and pieces.

One thing that highlights for me was just how stylish prosaic Italian cars could be. Nobody would ever want to reuse a door handle from a Ford Fairmont for anything, but Alfetta door handles ended up on exotica.

You are hard pressed to guess which country modern cars are designed in, but it used to be easy to tell.

[WalterBright]

Ferraris had cheap interiors, as all the money was spent on the engine. Not a bad tradeoff, who buys a Ferrari for the carpets?