Autoblog

Click above for hi-res gallery of the Pininfarina Sintesi Concept

Even prior to Pininfarina CEO Andrea Pininfarina's untimely death while out riding his scooter, the market for coachbuilt automobiles was shrinking fast. To wit, the Italian car design firm had recently just managed to sign an agreement with its creditors to reschedule the company's debt and is now asking for an extra one-hundred-million Euros from shareholders for future product development. Pininfarina is also planning on designing and building its own electric car using batteries and technology supplied by a French company known as The Bolloré Group. Currently, many questions surround the storied Italian marque. As of today, for instance, Pininfarina is without a leader as the company has yet to announce its next CEO, despite the fact that it is knee-deep in a turnaround plan to bring the company back to profitability. Can the storied design firm and coach-building company survive these tumultuous times without a leader? Time, as always, will tell.


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Click the image above for more hi-res images of the Pininfarina Sintesi Concept

After a reveal that's been measured out by coffee spoons, the whole cuppa joe called the Pininfarina Sintesi has been caught on film in full. The car won't really take you to the moon -- but it does have 700-HP, "little hydrogen reactors" placed throughout, and it doesn't need no stinkin' stop lights... and that's got to be almost as cool as going to the moon, right? Check out the gallery of hi-res photos of the Sintesi concept below.

Pininfarina's going to milk this for all it's worth. Rather than release all the details all at once on the Sintesi concept they'll will be showcasing in Geneva next month, the carrozeria has opted instead to give us a little bit more every week until its unveiling.

With four weeks to go, this week Pininfarina is highlighting the innovative layout of the Sintesi's powertrain. The fuel cells for the electric-hydrogen hybrid, rumored to be worth 700 horsepower all told, are being distributed all around the body. The unique approach to weight distribution takes advantage of the different properties of an electric/fuel-cell powertrain, which doesn't necessarily need to be housed all together in a dedicated engine bay like a conventional internal-combustion engine. Seems rather clever, if you don't mind the idea of little hydrogen reactors spread all around you like a blanket.

Check out the sketches and diagrams in the gallery below, or follow the link to the Sintesi webzine.

[Source: Pininfarina]