Photo: Guido Ten Brink/SB-Medien
Pininfarina is one of those names that evokes images just as beautiful as the sound of its name rolling off the tongue of a true Italian. It's one of the icons of automotive design, and now it's owned by Mahindra & Mahindra.
Yeah, not quite the same melody to its name, but to its credit, the Indian automaker did not swallow Pininfarina whole, but kept it as a separate entity instead. After all, when you buy something with this much weight in the market, you don't hurry to destroy it, but exploit it as best you can.
For now, apart from the H2 Speed Concept and the three concepts revealed at this year's Geneva Show (particularly the H600), Pininfarina has kept pretty quiet. The Italian design shop is involved in the resurgence of Korean brand Ssang Yong (also owned by Mahindra & Mahindra), but it's not making such a big case out of it, working silently in the background instead.
Now, though, Anand Mahindra, the chairman of the Mahindra Group, expressed his desire to enter the U.S. market. He plans to do so with the Ssang Yong brand eventually, but before that, he'll probe the water using a low-volume model. Something like an electric supercar, maybe?
And it's not like Mahindra doesn't have where to choose from: look no further than the H2 Speed Concept, a car that uses two electric motors and a small fuel cell to become the first high-performance track-only car in the world. Sure, it uses a hydrogen fuel cell instead of a battery pack, but with a few alterations to the powertrain - as well as a few more in other areas that would make the "track-only" monicker disappear - that design could make it into a limited production series, something it definitely deserves. And we doubt anyone on this planet would say no to that, including wealthy buyers in the American market.
“Competing in the U.S. is like the old Frank Sinatra song that if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere,” Anand said, quoted by Autoguide. "[...] when you sell cars in the US, it forces you to be the most competitive," he went on, explaining why entering the North American market would be so important for his company.
If Mahindra is serious about bringing a supercar to the U.S., using Pininfarina's expertise would be the logical solution, and opting for electric propulsion would also make sense considering Mahindra's involvement in the Formula E. For the sake of having a Pininfarina supercar out there, let's just hope the Indian automaker goes through with it.
For now, apart from the H2 Speed Concept and the three concepts revealed at this year's Geneva Show (particularly the H600), Pininfarina has kept pretty quiet. The Italian design shop is involved in the resurgence of Korean brand Ssang Yong (also owned by Mahindra & Mahindra), but it's not making such a big case out of it, working silently in the background instead.
Now, though, Anand Mahindra, the chairman of the Mahindra Group, expressed his desire to enter the U.S. market. He plans to do so with the Ssang Yong brand eventually, but before that, he'll probe the water using a low-volume model. Something like an electric supercar, maybe?
And it's not like Mahindra doesn't have where to choose from: look no further than the H2 Speed Concept, a car that uses two electric motors and a small fuel cell to become the first high-performance track-only car in the world. Sure, it uses a hydrogen fuel cell instead of a battery pack, but with a few alterations to the powertrain - as well as a few more in other areas that would make the "track-only" monicker disappear - that design could make it into a limited production series, something it definitely deserves. And we doubt anyone on this planet would say no to that, including wealthy buyers in the American market.
“Competing in the U.S. is like the old Frank Sinatra song that if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere,” Anand said, quoted by Autoguide. "[...] when you sell cars in the US, it forces you to be the most competitive," he went on, explaining why entering the North American market would be so important for his company.
If Mahindra is serious about bringing a supercar to the U.S., using Pininfarina's expertise would be the logical solution, and opting for electric propulsion would also make sense considering Mahindra's involvement in the Formula E. For the sake of having a Pininfarina supercar out there, let's just hope the Indian automaker goes through with it.
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