Great Machines: Watercraft: Ferrari in the Wet
06/01/2008
The design signature is unmistakable. Exterior lines mix sensuous swoops with sharp creases. Bold interior touches combine overstuffed seats with purposeful controls. Then, there’s that brilliant red paint. It could only be a ... Challenger powerboat?Well, make that a U.S.-built craft that’s gone to finishing school in Italy. The new PF 36 Limited Edition is what happens when a storied stateside brand lets legendary design firm Pininfarina take the helm of a $450,000 entry into the Cigarette-style boat market. With its 36-foot Duo-Delta Conic hull (two hulls in one for improved stability) and twin Mercury engines (the most powerful stern-drive units available in the U.S., boasting 662 hp each), the PF 36 Limited Edition can hit 95 mph, while transporting six people in luxury.
Or put another way: "It can take a family [from Miami] to the Bahamas in about an hour," says Paolo Pininfarina, grandson of company founder Battista "Pinin" Farina, whose nickname—meaning "little" in Piedmontese dialect—was later formally incorporated into the family name.
"We feel this boat reflects what our design philosophy is all about, which is innovation and personality, simplicity but not minimalism," says Pininfarina, CEO of Pininfarina Extra, a growing branch of the global firm that specializes in product and industrial design. Pininfarina Extra projects have included mobile phones, televisions, kitchens, jet interiors and even the Keating hotel in San Diego.
"When people look at our designs, we want them to think they look easy to come up with. When, of course, they are very difficult," says Pininfarina. "Whether that’s an egg-shaped Jacuzzi tub, or any of our Ferraris."
Ah, the F-word. If Pininfarina is associated with any one creation it is indeed the motorized sculptures from Maranello. Over the decades, countless Ferraris have benefitted from the Turin-based company’s deft hand, from the Daytona to the F40 to the current best of breed, the 599 GTB Fiorano. If the cars’ designs themselves did not shout Pininfarina, the trademark logo—a P integrated into an F—provide a clue.
Not surprisingly, Pininfarina points to one of his grandfather’s most iconic designs to speak for the company’s overall philosophy: the 1946 Cisitalia 202 GT, a fantastically fluid machine that has even earned the right to permanently park inside New York’s Museum of Modern Art. "On the one hand you see the Cisitalia in that [museum] setting and you think it is meant just as an artistic statement, but that’s not true," says Pininfarina. "There were 200 of those cars made, and there were supposed to be 2,000. This merging of arte e industria can seem contradictory, but it is what we are all about."
The company namesake goes on to dispense the predictable mantra claimed by anyone in the design world—we don’t follow trends, we anticipate them—but the truth is that Pininfarina is more of a constant, as instantly recognizable as a Salvador Dalí painting or an Apple product. "I suppose it is true that good style is always a constant in time," says Pininfarina. "It’s about creating a look that is essential."
The hope is that the PF 36 will stir the same sort of passion
the firm’s automotive triumphs have enjoyed over the years. It’s an association
another company leader admits is hard to escape. "I’d rather not call this a
Ferrari on water, because that’s so easy to do, but, that’s really what it is,"
says Franco Lodato, the PF 36’s lead designer as well as vice president and
managing director of Pininfarina Extra’s U.S.
division, based in Fort
Lauderdale. "It’s Challenger’s technical specifications, but the rest of it
reflects our design aesthetic. Whether that’s the colors, the comfortable
leather seating, or some of the most advanced dials and navigation systems
available. We want to be on the vanguard."To be specific, the boat features touchscreen-adjustable
Cantalupi interior lighting, automatically deploying spoilers, and the usual
litany of flat-screen TVs, iPod-ready sound systems as well as a bar with a sink
and refrigerator. Perhaps the most Ferrari-esque feature are the seats, virtual cocoons that make an Enzo’s side bolsters look downright flimsy.
As for who might be the prime market for the PF 36, its designer doesn’t hesitate. "We’re probably talking about [it serving as] a really nice tender for a mega-yacht." That said, the PF 36’s goal was to launch the firm at a price point that was rarified but not hallucinatory. "We wanted to shoot high, but still have the boat be relatively affordable," says Pininfarina. He adds that an even more family-friendly Pininfarina-designed Challenger vessel will debut later this year—it will have a slightly detuned powerplant and an even greater emphasis on deck-side lounging amenities.
"Over the past three years, we have launched three boats in Europe, but we knew we had to approach the U.S. market in a completely different way," he says. "America, after all, is another world, another speed, another temperature. Our effort had to be elegant without being cold. It had to be sporty. I think this boat perfectly reflects our attitude, inside and out."
Not that all buyers will need Pininfarina’s pointed historical references and artful explanations to be coaxed into buying a PF 36 Limited Edition. For anyone with stile italiano coursing through their veins, those rakish lines, that brilliant red, those plush seats—and, yes, that sleek logo racing across those pinched stern flanks—will be reasons enough.
Challenger Powerboats, www.challengerpowerboats.com
Pininfarina Extra, extra.pininfarina.com