Where do you see Pininfarinas competitive advantage over other rivals, such as Bertone, Porsche, or Magna?
We try to be excellent and competitive in each area. Ferrari is only interested in design. For Jaguar, we’re doing only product engineering. For Mitsubishi, we’re only doing manufacturing. The Peugeot 406 Coupe is styling, design, engineering, and production. The Chinese Hafei contract is for design and engineering. And Ford’s StreetKa contract is for engineering and production. Q: How can you boost your business in engineering, given the tough European rivals you face? A: We did extensive research in 2000 interviewing auto manufacturers. They’ve all reorganized to improve efficiency and concentrate their resources on platform engineering as a common base for new models. By contrast, they’re facing increasing market demand for greater differentiation and segmentation. There is an [outsourcing] opportunity in body engineering to develop different bodies for auto makers on their same platform. We have specific skill in body engineering — that’s definitely an expanding market. Around 30%
