Alfa Canguro: The Most Beautiful Car Ever Made?

Cars

alfa_cangurro

Beauty is a difficult thing to define. It’s a cliché to say that it resides in the perception of the observer. Anyone with an aesthetic atom in their being knows that the non-relative, objective, obviously apparent kind of beauty truly exists.

There of course can be beauty in the magic play of numbers on a balance sheet, in the engineering brilliance required to squeeze a hundred miles out of a litre of fuel, or the ability to carry safely a screaming family of six to the coast for a weekend without causing marital breakdown.

Problem is, this deeply embedded, functional aesthetic has apparently dominated vehicle design of the last few years.

But as obvious as the fact that beauty is everywhere, and that it can take on a variety of manifestations – is the fact that Giugiaro’s distinctly feminine design for Bertone of the Alfa Canguro, that debuted at the Paris salon of 1964, must be one of the most objectively beautiful cars ever designed.

Its lines flow each into each with an almost otherworldly harmony; the wheel arches describe the sort of arc that Michaelangelo must have dreamed about in the halls of renaissance Rome; the curved glass work and fibreglass that encased the cabin folds the driver in like the pilot of a fighter plane; the D-type inspired nose and cut-off, perky tail hints of nimbleness and endless fleet of foot.

Though the lightweight, supremely slipstreamed design never manifest in a road-going production Alfa, a version of the car survives, last reported shown at a concours event in Italy in 2005, apparently by a Japanese owner. Elements of the design informed many classic Alfa and Bertone designs, particularly the gorgeous Montreal of 1970.

Is beauty truly in the eye of the beholder?

Let us know what, if anything, pleases your pupils as much as this slice of automotive heaven.

cangurro_sketch

 

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5 Responses to “Alfa Canguro: The Most Beautiful Car Ever Made?”

  1. A beautfiul car, possibly made more beautiful by its rarety? Does anyone think this rarety factor influences beauty?

    Does anyone else think it looks like a rounded 944… and yet some 30-40 years its predecessor?? Talk about vision!!!

    I wonder why nobody makes cars styled like this anymore… Closest i can think of is a Ford GT? Maybe thats why??!!

  2. David j hope

    No No No.  It looks like a shed that a bloke built.  Those windows simply don’t fit and the slippery shape looks like someome needed to fit it in the garage so took an angle grinder to the back.
    I owned an Sunbeam Alpine (he last shape they made) and I can assure you that enormous back window fries anything inside.  And those headlights … hit a Bill Beardo at your peril.
    Must combine practicality with much better looks.

  3. Westi51

    I have to disagree with D J H. I’ve built a shed and it looked a hell of a lot better than that! and Dan my shed is rare, very rare!! 

  4. Westi51

    I have to disagree with D J H. I’ve built a shed and it looked a hell of a lot better than that! and Dan my shed is rare, very rare!! 

  5. Keith Turner

    Not bad but I think the Series 1  Jaguar E-Type is more pure.