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june 21, 2022 - Pininfarina

Pininfarina Wind Tunnel celebrates 50 years of excellence in aerodynamic and aeroacoustic research


Grugliasco (Turin), June 21 2022 - Pininfarina celebrates another important milestone in its history: half a century of excellence in aerodynamic and aeroacoustic research. In 1972, exactly 50 years ago, #pininfarina became a leader in this sector when then Chairman Sergio #pininfarina inaugurated the Wind Tunnel in #grugliasco, near Turin. It was Italy's first wind tunnel to be built for testing full-scale cars, at the time one of only seven in the world.

This morning, for this important milestone, the #pininfarina Wind Tunnel is hosting the round table entitled “Aerodynamics and sustainability, from electric cars to buildings" to explore how two key drivers in the history of #pininfarinaaerodynamics and sustainability, play a crucial role not only in the automobile, but in all sectors in which #pininfarina is fully committed. The Wind Tunnel, in fact, has already proved to be a powerful tool for testing and developing products across different fields. Examples include aircrafts, high-speed trains, yachts, buildings, wind engineering, industrial #design and sporting goods.

The Wind Tunnel”, comments CEO Silvio Pietro Angori, “has given our Company a considerable competitive edge, being the only #design company to own one. Born as a tool with which #pininfarina developed its own projects, today the Wind Tunnel is a strategic asset for the Group thus expanding the portfolio of services that we offer to the market: an activity that supports other sectors beyond the #automotive, from transportation to architecture, from nautical to industrial design”.

The Wind Tunnel has always been a cutting-edge strategic tool for OEMs in the #automotive sector. The advent of electric mobility, introducing new challenges in the field of aerodynamic and aeroacoustic development, has made it even more decisive in the search for increasing autonomy and interior comfort.

The #pininfarina Wind Tunnel, which also boasts a new logo made especially for its first 50 years, is future-oriented. Its testing capabilities are being constantly improved thanks to the development of innovative measurement techniques in both the aerodynamic and aeroacoustic fields. It’s also one of the few in the world to have a TGS - Turbulence Generator System able to create various conditions of controlled turbulence, associated with gusts of wind, overtaking manoeuvres, cross winds and vortices generated by cars ahead. The Ground Effect Simulation System, instead, allows faithfully reproducing real vehicle motion conditions. 

In addition to applications in the #automotive sector, use of the Tunnel is strategic with respect to all-round sustainability, understood as a reduction in consumption and greater comfort for high-speed trains, trucks, aircraft, yachts, fabrics and sports items. The wind tunnel can also foster architectural sustainability and safety by studying, through scale models or portions of real buildings, how wind exposure affects buildings and infrastructure. Therefore, the #pininfarina Wind Tunnel runs aerodynamic and aeroacoustics tests to identify and solve potential pain points, guaranteeing maximum levels of structural performance and noise comfort.

I am very proud and also touched”, said Chairman Paolo Pininfarina at the anniversary event, “to share with you the celebrations for something that was born out of my Father's genius. Without a doubt #pininfarina has a real passion for aerodynamics. And it’s a passion that has lasted more than 50 years, long before my father decided to build this structure. It all began with my grandfather Pinin, whose visionary intuition in aerodynamics is exemplified since the Lancia Aprilia Aerodinamica produced in 1936”.

Pininfarina Wind Tunnel, history in brief

Starting in 1930, the year the company was founded, Battista Pinin Farina skilfully created new car models which were superior in terms of styling and performance. One of the tools used to achieve these results was aerodynamics. Of the many models, two deserve special mention: the aerodynamic coupé Lancia Aprilia and the Cisitalia. The performance of the first, built in 1936, was exceptional when compared with that of other cars of the same size, engine capacity and weight. The drag coefficient of the second, the Cisitalia, presented in 1947, measured some years ago in the #pininfarina Wind Tunnel, is an outstanding 0.37, better than many younger designs.

In 1972, as proof of its deep commitment to aerodynamics, #pininfarina built the first wind tunnel in Italy for testing full-scale cars. Initially it was thought of as a means of improving the performance of vehicles in terms of top speed, handling, etc. Later, however, due to the energy crisis in 1973, the wind tunnel played a different role, being used to improve fuel economy, as it is widely known that good aerodynamic characteristics are a key factor in obtaining improved fuel economy. For this reason, extensive use of the wind tunnel during new car development is now common practice.

Actually, the decision to build the Wind Tunnel was made years earlier. In 1965 #pininfarina decided to carry out a preliminary study concerning the realisation of an #automotive full scale wind tunnel. At its conclusion, in 1967, Prof. Alberto Morelli of Turin Politecnico was entrusted with the task of designing an #automotive wind tunnel for aerodynamic testing on full scale cars. In 1970 #pininfarina took the final decision to build the wind tunnel. This was the occasion for Sergio #pininfarina to demonstrate all his brilliant technical as well as entrepreneurial farsightedness. It was on the basis of his work with Ferrari that Sergio reached the conviction that an instrument capable of scientifically measuring the aerodynamic performance of a car body was bound to become an important, competitive factor for a company that wanted to develop and sell car #design. The construction took almost three years and the wind tunnel was therefore finished in autumn 1972.

Among the most famous cars studied in the wind tunnel, the various Ferrari Formula 1 cars, the Lancia Montecarlo Group 5 cars, winners of the 1979, 1980 and 1981 World Championship for touring cars and the Lancia Rally. Among the motorcycles tested, the BMW R 100 RS, whose integral fairing was optimised in the wind tunnel. Also sports equipment of world-class athletes and sports equipment designed by #pininfarina, such as Mizuno golf clubs and Lange ski boots, have undergone tests in the Wind Tunnel. And let’s not forget the great success of the 2006 Turin Winter Olympic Games, for which #pininfarina designed and developed the Torch, also tested in the Wind Tunnel.

It is worth remembering some of the main aerodynamic research which has been conducted in the #pininfarina wind tunnel, such as the one conducted for the Ministry of Transportation in 1974 in the sphere of the Italian program for the study and development of experimental safety vehicles, the many collaboration agreements with Turin Politecnico, the studies in 1976 on behalf of the CNR (Italian National Research Council) to define an ideal car body shape having a minimum Cx complying at the same time with the most important requirements of an average European passenger car. Recently, the #pininfarina Wind Tunnel hosted UNIROMA3 and the ERACLE Consortium for an aeroacoustic test campaign on the ERACLE model with the aim of collecting data useful for designing pushing propellers with better acoustic performance, thus contributing to achieve a greener and more silent next generation aircraft.

Going to the mountains in winter I saw how the wind had streamlined the snow at the side of the road, carving out curved or sharp shapes at the edges. The wind event gives shape to trees. I wanted to copy those lines…”

Battista Pinin Farina