/Qatar Motor Show: Italian Concept Cars

Qatar Motor Show: Italian Concept Cars

Qatar Motor Show Logo at Qatar Motor Show: Italian Concept Cars

From 26 to 29 January 2011, Qatar Tourism Authority will be hosting the first international auto show in their promising country. Apart from all the usual motor show stuff, one thing that makes it interesting for car enthusiasts is the presence of Italian design giants with some of their finest creations.

Autostudi, Bertone, Castagna, Fioravanti, Pininfarina, Prototipo, Salt, Spada and Touring Superleggera, these are some of the big names to light up city of Doha with their amazing concept cars. Our absolute favorite of all is without a doubt the Alfa Romeo Pandion by Bertone. That car alone is worth a trip to Qatar!

More details in the press release below…

q Autostudi at Qatar Motor Show: Italian Concept Cars

Autostudi from Turin, designer of particularly innovative concept cars, will be presenting the world preview of restyling of the C-Sport at the Qatar Motor Show 2011. The C-Sport Qatar is an innovative sports car of the highest level with clean sinuous lines, projecting itself as a luxury toy-car.   The car is young and dynamic with a spirited soul – ready to promise surprising performance.

“We decided to take part with our Italian designer colleagues at the Qatar Motor Show,” says Carlo Angiono, Managing Director of Autostudi.  “We look forward to encountering a new market in which we can express the creativity of Autostudi in luxury cars and, why not, be the ones to build the next one-off for the Qatar clientele.”

q Bertone Pandion at Qatar Motor Show: Italian Concept Cars

Bertone, founded in 1912, one of the oldest and most prestigious Italian firms in the car sector, will be presenting the Bertone Pandion at the Qatar Motor Show – a futuristic coupè dedicated to the 100 years of Alfa Romeo fitted with a mighty heart (an 8-cylinder motor, 4.2 litre and 444 HP). Bertone Pandion proudly takes its place in the historical family of Bertone-designed Alfa Romeos – an unmistakeable style icon from the very beginning.

“The Bertone Pandion,” says Sandro Colella, Bertone General Manager, “is a supercar which combines the aggressive style of a sports car with spectacular construction solutions, with the doors hinged in ‘inverse elytron’ manner on the rear wheel boxes. All this is crowned by powerful engineering: an 8-cylinder V engine, 4.7 litres and 450 HP of Maserati derivation which provides unique driving thrills. The Pandion is an exceptional product, a solitaire that confirms Bertone as one of the great names of Italian-made cars, but also one of Italy’s outstanding brands in terms of lifestyle, as worldwide leader in the luxury market.”

q Castagna at Qatar Motor Show: Italian Concept Cars

Simplicity and innovation are the guiding values in Fioravanti which, in 2008, developed Ferrari’s first official one-off car, the Ferrari SP1. Fioravanti will launch the F100r at the Qatar Motor Show 2011.  This is an open roadster, conceived with the aim of creating an open car with the maximum comfort thanks to an innovative multi-sphere widescreen designed aerodynamically to generate air flows which protects the passengers’ heads by being reattached at the rear.”
Leonardo Fioravanti, CEO, declares: “The Middle East is an area of great potential and there are many collectors with a marked passion for one-offs, a sector in which we recently began to specialize with the presentation of the Ferrari SP1 in the Italian Competition at Monterey in California, a car designed by Fioravanti for a Japonese collector which won the ‘Best of Show’ prize.”

q Fioravanti at Qatar Motor Show: Italian Concept Cars

Carrozzeria Castagna, established in 1849, is an automobile atelier that produces over 30 unique pieces per year, duly approved for every country in the world.  160 years of history, the highest levels of professionalism, and great artisan capacity cannot be improvised.  Today, like yesterday, Carrozzeria Castagna is proud to have an in-house school where it transmits its wealth of knowledge and experience of its glorious past to build a future of excellence.

Its proprietor, Gioacchino Acampora, states: “Castagna has been present in the Middle East with its own custom-built cars since 1922.  In 1932, His Majesty King Saud Ibn Abdul Aziz Al Saud visited the Castagna stand during the Salone dell’Automobile in Milan and bought 2 Isotta Fraschini cars with our bodywork.  Today this market has customers of great automobile passion and culture, great connoisseurs who not only buy very expensive and powerful cars but, if necessary, create them from square one, realizing their dreams with the help of our atelier.

From our special 500 program we’re pleased to showcase here a “small” tasteful one-off Fiat 500, part of our worldwide collection known as Beach Tender, called Tender2 by Castagna Milano. The car can feature also hybrid or full electric engine, and, of course any other kind of option as with all of our creations.”

q Pininfarina at Qatar Motor Show: Italian Concept Cars

Pininfarina is a design house with a history that dates back to 1930. Pininfarina offers the market – both OEMs and end-customers – competitive products and services based on its brand values: creativity, experience and innovation. In Qatar it will present the Nido project with which it decided to rethink the methodology of the car design process.  The result is an innovative concept which will re-examine the safety of small cars. The aim of this 2-seater is to increase both the internal and external safety of the occupants.

“We are proud to be present at the first international edition of the Qatar Motor Show,” comments Silvio Pietro Angori, CEO of Pininfarina.  “A concept like the Nido perfectly embodies our mission – that of ‘dressing’ technology.”   The clean lines and harmonious forms won the Nido the Most Beautiful Automobile in the World Award, the 2008 Compasso d’Oro (Golden Compass), and exhibition in the temple of modern art -the MOMA in New York.  Angori continued:  “Nido is also a research laboratory on the issue of safety, and as early as 2004 it gave rise to an electric version – the Nido EV, which we presented this year in order to testify to our commitment to sustainable mobility.”

q Salt at Qatar Motor Show: Italian Concept Cars

Specialized in car interiors as a result of superior and elegant leather work, Salt has developed its commitment in research and experimentation and today designs and builds prototypes of every kind, and is in the front line in the sector of fitting out interiors for luxury cars and aircrafts.  In Qatar, Salt will be showcasing the RK Coupè, a project that combines the preparation of a RUF engine on a Cayman base. RK Coupè is an example of the customization that SALT can create for its customers, both with the bodywork and the interiors where SALT expresses the best in the precision and refinement of every detail.

Pierfranco Gavina, CEO, declares: “We are certain that in the coming years the Middle East, Chinese and Russian markets will be in rapid development for the car sector and this provides a significant opportunity that Italian car designers must grasp. At the Qatar Motor Show we will be presenting our experience which has been matured now for over forty years and enables us to meet all the customization requests which characterize the Middle East market.”

q Spada at Qatar Motor Show: Italian Concept Cars

Spaconcept is a design studio which works in every stage of the process, from the design to the prototyping of cars and motorcycles, to industrial design (including helmets and motorcycles), as well as marketing consultancy.  At the Qatar Motor Show, the company will be presenting its Spada TS Codatronca, a courageous product which rejects the exasperated search for records at all costs.  Instead of increasing power dizzily, Spadaconcept has preferred to work to maximize the performance of the installed power, introducing aerodynamic forms and a light and essential structure, thereby obtaining an extremely stable and manageable car, which is capable of achieving racetrack performance with the maximum exploitation of the engine power of over 630 HP.

Paolo Spada, CEO, declares: “The Qatar Motor Show certainly represents a great opportunity for tackling a receptive market as regards niche products and joint investments. A market where craftsmanship, linked with Italian design, attracts a very attentive clientele.”

q Tourig Superlegga at Qatar Motor Show: Italian Concept Cars

Touring Superleggera was established in Milan in 1926 and is considered all over the world to be one of the maximum players in the Italian Automotive design.  It created masterpieces such as the Ferrari 166 and the Aston Martin DB 4/5. For the very first time for the Middle East, Touring Superleggera introduces the Bentley Continental Flying Star, a high-performance shooting brake. This limited edition supercar is custom built on order (19 exemplars, at the most, 2 already on the road in Europe). It is designed and coach in Milan under the supervision of Bentley Motors for engineering and quality which guarantees sales and support. Blending advanced engineering with 4 thousand hours of highly skilled hand work, it features a servo-controlled boot lid 2 m long versatile luggage and a staggering 560 to 630 PS W12 engine on permanent all-wheel drive.

Piero Mancardi, CEO, says: “The Middle East Market is ideal for our products. The public in these countries appreciates the exclusive quality, the value of traditions, the preciousness of the work and the unmistakeable style, all specific values of our marque. In this sense, the encounter between Italian style and the technological perfection of Bentley offers an ideal product.”

Prototipo Group will also be present at the Qatar Motor Show with Nardò Technical Center, one of the most complete and active Proving Grounds and Experimentation Centres in the world of automobile testing.  For all motor buffs and high-speed fans, the famous “Nardò ring” is a “temple” frequented by not only the most powerful and fastest supercars, but also by motorcycles and prototypes created specifically to establish new international and world duration records. The extraordinary proving ground is located in the sunny Southern Italy in the area known as Salento Leccese and is accustomed to hosting technical teams, engineers, and pilots involved in running kilometres on tracks designed for development tests 24/7 on 363 days a year. Amidst olive trees and just a few hundred metres from the beaches, all types and categories of vehicles on two and four wheels (even lorries!) can travel uninterruptedly on the perfectly circular 12.6 km track, exploiting the incline of the track to speed along as if they were on an infinite straightaway, with no appreciable correction in the steering required up to speeds of 240km/h.

The First International Edition of the Qatar Motor Show, held at the Doha Exhibitions Center from 26 -29 January 2011, promises to be an extraordinary auto show that will thrill spectators from around the world. The 1st Middle East Automotive Summit will take place before the official inauguration on January 26, and will feature executives from top international automotive manufacturers, debating the future of the automobile. More information regarding the 1st Middle East Automotive Summit can be found in the dedicated section on the new website.  The exhibition will also offer a host of outdoor activities for visitors, including test drive sessions.

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(Founder / Chief Editor / Journalist) – Arman is the original founder of Motorward.com, which he kept until August 2009. Currently Arman is our chief editor and is held responsible for a large part of the news we publish.