Gloria is a tribute to sportiness and sleek Italian style, created to celebrate the strength of a brand with international renown – Alfa Romeo – which, with its products, has brought the beauty of Made in Italy design to the world. It was 1966 when, in the United States, the legend of the Milan company was born with the Giulia Spider Duetto in the film The Graduate. Today, Gloria is aiming towards another international challenge, still looking overseas, to the American and Asian markets.

A thesis project for the Master of Arts in Transportation Design – work experience IED Turin a.y ’11/12, the concept, created in collaboration with Alfa Romeo, will be presented in world premiere at the 83rd Geneva International Motor Show. The Istituto Europeo di Design of Turin, thanks to support from and collaboration with Fiat Chrysler’s Design Center EMEA, has had an opportunity to train its young car designers to “develop an Alfa Romeo sedan product to be communicated also to the American and Asian markets”. The sedan is in fact, for these markets, still a symbol of elegance and prestige with comfortable spaces in both the front and rear, expressed through the length of the model. In particular, the Alfa Romeo Style Centre passionately contributed to the various phases of the project, from the product brief, with the presentation of the historic collection of the brand, to the initial style proposals, from clay modelling to the mathematical definitions for the full-scale model.

Gloria (length 4700 mm – width 1920 mm – height 1320 mm – pitch 2900 mm) is a sport sedan with bold lines running along the side to the rear end. On the road, it would be powered by a latest generation V6 or V8 bi-turbo engine. On the bonnet, there is a strong reference to the Alfa Romeo shield sculpted from the car’s lines, emphasising the three-dimensional nature of the shapes. The front leather straps are reminiscent of the memorable leather boot straps of the brand’s historic cars. “We asked – says Lorenzo Ramaciotti, Head of Fiat & Chrysler Design – the students on the Master’s course to interpret, in complete autonomy, a new Alfa Romeo sedan. During the development we commented, discussed and guided the designs in order to achieve the maximum spontaneous expression of their creativity. The end result was stimulating and of an excellent professional and creative level”.

“The chance that has been given to us – says César Mendoza, Director of IED Turin – to develop a concept car in collaboration with the Alfa Romeo Style Centre, was a wonderful opportunity to demonstrate how much the IED is, first and foremost, an Italian school that aims at generating beauty. What better brand than Alfa Romeo to teach to our students how shapes and volumes can convey strong emotions, nurturing the desire to own a car? The passion evoked by the brand was strongly felt by the students and lecturers on the Master, allowing them to achieve tight deadlines until achieving the final output of a truly complex project. The Istituto Europeo di Design is proud of representing in the world today an excellent ‘made in Italy’ way of setting the standard”.

Now making its tenth appearance in Geneva, the Istituto Europeo di Design is offering for 2013 the chance to enjoy at the stand a unique experience by integrating the full-scale model with augmented reality. The concept will in fact be reproduced on iPads in a virtual environment with the

possibility to interact by choosing from five models of wheels and five body colours to be tested and to replace the real ones. The five wheels are the fruit of an educational project developed in collaboration with OZ S.p.A. which, sponsor of Gloria’s 20″ wheels, asked the students of the Master’s course to design a range of proposals from which the five for the virtual interaction were chosen. The five wheels will also be subject to a creative thinking competition which IED and OZ S.p.A. will launch at the stand via the app and on web via the Facebook page, respectively of IED and OZ, whose most interesting design will be the winner.

Gloria is the work of twenty students on the Master’s course coordinated by the car designer Luca Borgogno. The concept was in fact the result of a process marked by various stages of assessment, simulating a real working situation: starting from twenty design proposals, ten were selected and created in clay in 1:4 scale. Finally, the one which best met the initial brief provided by the company was chosen from these ten. The entire class, divided into groups, then worked on the chosen design in order to complete the full-scale concept.

The Master of Arts in Transportation Design – work experience has proven to be a highly qualifying training course which prepares professionals in the automotive sector to be able to succeed the world of work thanks to a constant relationship with companies and style centres. The students actually personally oversaw the phases of creating the model at Cecomp, a leading company in the production of models and prototypes and the main sponsor in 2013, which has worked alongside the Istituto Europeo di Design for years in the prototyping process.

At the Geneva Motor Show, the Istituto Europeo di Design stand will also present, through the projection of two videos, a selection of design proposals created respectively by the Undergraduate Degree in Transport Design of IED Barcelona and by the Master in Transportation Design of IED São Paulo. IED is currently a network with a strong international vocation whose educational philosophy combines knowledge with know-how, an essential premise for contributing to the professional growth and creative and critical skills of IED students across the world. The partnership with prestigious companies from the automotive sector has principally allowed the IED bases in Turin, Barcelona and São Paulo to become de facto places for discussion and attention to the world of design linked to mobility.

Gloria stems from an idea of: Alexandros LIOKIS (Greece) with the support of Mayur PIPALIYA (India)

The following worked on the project: Mete Can AYDINOGLU (Turkey); Uyum CAGLAYAN (Turkey); Giuseppe CAMPO (Italy); Kenny CHAN (Malaysia); Janmejay DESAI (India); Ranbir KALHA (India); Denis MALTZ BIN (Brazil); Carlos PALACIOS BERENGENA (Spain); Alexander PROTSENKO (USA); Chaitanya RAJWADE (India); Jose Manuel RAMIREZ MORENTE (Spain); Marco RISSETTO (Italy); Dollie SAHERTIAN (Indonesia); Baek SEUNG YUP (Korea); Dong Myoung SHIN (Korea); Fernando Alberto VALDES AMBIA (Mexico); Junu YOOK (Korea) and Yuan ZHANG (China).

The Master of Arts in Transportation Design – work experience IED Turin is coordinated by: Luca Borgogno, Lead Designer and IED Lecturer.

In some design phases has collaborated: Aldo Maria SICA, third year student on the Three-year post-diploma Course in Transportation Design IED Turin – a.y. ’12/13.

These people collaborated in the design: Mr Lorenzo Ramaciotti – Head of Fiat & Chrysler Design; Marco Tencone – Head of Alfa Romeo, Lancia & Maserati Design; Andrea Loi – Senior Designer Alfa Romeo; Alberto Dilillo – Head of Lancia Design and Antonio Erario – Senior Surface Designer.