Franco Scaglione

Scaglione is best known for designingAlfa Romeo BATconcept cars

Franco Scaglione(26 September 1916 – 19 June 1993) was an Italian automobile coachwork designer.

Biography

Franco Scaglionewas born inFlorenceto Vittorio Scaglione, a chiefarmy doctor,and to Giovanna Fabbri, captain of theItalian Red Crossservice. His was a well-to-do family of noble ancestry (count of Martirano San Nicola and of Mottafilocastro). At the age of 6, he and his younger brother became fatherless.
His studies were of humanistic leanings, but he entered the university of Aeronautical Engineering. His favourite hobbies were reading, tennis, riding and rowing. He went into military service with the rank of sub-lieutenant in thesappers,the Genio Pontieri. He continued his studies, but at the outbreak of theSecond World Warhe volunteered to be assigned to a more destructive unit, theGenio Guastatoriand was sent to the Libyan front. On Christmas Eve 1941, he was taken prisoner by the British at El Duda, a village to the south ofTobruk.He was to be interned at the Yol detention camp in India, where he remained until the end of 1946. He returned to Italy on Boxing Day that year with the last boat used for the carrying of prisoners. He rejoined his mother (his brother Eugenio was killed during the war) inCarolei,nearCosenza,and stayed with her for almost a year.^[1]
At the beginning of 1948 he went to Bologna in search of a job; he already had it in mind to work as a stylist in the automobile field, his real passion. Initially he devoted his time to sketching clothing for fashion houses, which was very profitable, but his vocation was automobile coachwork design. On 25 September 1948 he married Maria Luisa Benvenuti and two years later, on 10 September, his daughter Giovanna was born.
In April, 1951, he moved to Turin, where there were the majorcoachbuildingfirms, and he contactedBattista Farina,who very much appreciated his renderings. However, this did not result in collaboration, as Farina did not allow his models to be linked to the designer's name. He metNuccio Bertoneand finally an association was born, which led him to create automobiles such as theAlfa Romeo B.A.T.s,the Giulietta Sprint and Sprint Speciale and many others. In 1959 he concluded the exclusive relationship with theBertonecoachworks and worked on his own. His first collaboration as a freelancer was withCarlo AbarthandPorsche,and he designed the Porsche 356 B Abarth Carrera GTL, the acclaimed design forerunner of the911.Then Scaglione conceived theLamborghini 350 GTV,theATS 2500 GT,the 1900 Skyline Sprint for the Japanese Prince company (later to merge in 1966 with Nissan), the Titania Veltro GTT, and various models forIntermeccanicasuch as the Apollo, Torino, Italia GFX, Italia IMX, Indra. In 1967, he designed for Alfa Romeo'sAutodeltathe legendaryAlfa Romeo 33 Stradale,said by many to be one of the most beautiful cars ever made.^[2] Alas, Intermeccanica became bankrupt and the entrepreneur owner, Frank Reisner, moved to Canada. Franco Scaglione, having put his own savings in the production of the Indra, was disillusioned and retired from work.
In 1981 he moved toSuvereto,a little village in the province of Livorno, where he lived a verysecluded life.In July, 1991, he was diagnosed with lung cancer. He died two years later.^[3]