Pininfarina contracted to overhaul Eurostar chunnel train

Unless you've got access to a continent-gobbling exotic GT and an immunity to speeding tickets, everyone who's ever traveled Europe knows that the preferred way of getting around the Old World is via train. (Heck, even us car-crazed nuts here at Autoblog take the train for European auto shows.) But for one high-speed train service, the experience is about to get a little bit more... automotive.

Pininfarina, the same Italian design house responsible for dozens of Ferraris and countless other automotive designs throughout the decades, has been awarded the contract to refurbish the train cars for the Eurostar line. Running between Britain, France and Belgium through the English channel, the Eurostar train travels at speeds of up to 300 km/h (186 mph), making it from London to Paris in two hours and fifteen minutes. However, the high-class, high-speed trains haven't been redone since going into operation some 15 years ago. While Ferrari's Luca di Montezemolo gets behind the project to build a high-speed train system in Italy, the first of Pininfarina's refurbished Eurostar trains is expected to hit the rails in 2012.

[Source: Autocar]

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