What was the client looking for in terms of design?
“The DBS is very aggressive and looks like a pure driving machine, almost like a weapon, very high-tech, very sophisticated.
“With this one, we tried not to compete with the original DBS, we tried to go in a different direction, which is more classic, Gran Turismo, a nice balance between elegance and sportiness and a lot more romantic.
“In Italy, people say, ‘la dolce vita,’ enjoy life; so we tried to put that kind of element into it. This car fits the south coast of France, the Mediterranean, the south of Italy: a lot of sunshine, like time goes by a little more slowly.”
What is it like to design a vehicle for a private commission?
“It’s a really nice design process, because I’m trying to satisfy one single person, not a statistic or a marketing department.
“Marketing is a very important business tool for industry, but with this kind of project, I have a single person in front of me. This means I can have more of a chance to really, really satisfy. So it’s very satisfying as a designer.”
Did you have a good rapport with the client?
“Yes. From the beginning, we agreed to go a different direction compared to the base vehicle.
“The DBS is already a street-legal race car, so we thought it wouldn’t make sense trying to go even beyond the level of a DBS. We would have to spend a lot of money on technical things. How can we make the car much lighter than the current DBS? That would be very difficult. So people might expect Zagato to bring out something more sporty compared to the production line, but this time we changed it. We decided not to go there.”
How would you characterize your design approach then?
“Very simple. There are not many lines that you can see on the body shape. We really tried to limit the design theme, to make it simple but strong.
“When a man tries to woo a woman, some can talk a lot, use many words. But sometimes you can do it with just a single word that is very strong, passionate. So this is more the second one.”
