This is the website of the Italian designers Pininfarina, creators of the Peugeot 504. And of course the rest of the cars they created, the Lancia Aprilia, Alfa Guillietta, Ferrari Testarossa blah blah blah...
It's a gallery of amazing, cool design.
However, on their timeline for the 1960s, they write about the unveiling of the Cabriolet in 1969, and how the Coupe became the "Queen of Africa" in the African rallies (by which I'm assuming they mean the Dakar).
But NO MENTION of the 1968 launch of the 504 Berline...
It revolutionised travel in vast swathes of the world. In Nigeria it became the first domestically mass produced car in West Africa, giving stylish transport to the up-and-coming African bureaucrat.
Curious that the modern historians only want to concentrate on the sporty models. I think the sedan looks much better than its cousins anyway.
At the 1969 Paris motor show launch of the Cabriolet, Sergio Pininfarina goes into a kind of hyperbolic meltdown, where bad English meets designer bullshit:
"Italian design and manufacturing for a car which made the French dreaming, a sort of free ‘tone-production’ as regards the theme of the sedan, also designed by Pininfarina, a free ‘touch’, to use the musical term”.
Not really sure if that is exactly what he said, or just the garbled version on their website...
These days the company is pootling about with much less important projects, like the Ferrari 599 GTB, and the electric BLUECAR
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