World-renown Italian design company Pininfarina recently announced it is setting up shop in the UAE, with an office in Dubai. It's most famed for its work in car design and coach-building, working on lauded classic designs with the likes of Ferrari, Alfa Romeo and Lancia. Company chairman and current family custodian Paolo Pininfarina told us more about the Dubai move.

Why have you decided to set up a base in Dubai and why particularly now?

Dubai is a natural choice for Pininfarina. Innovation, exclusivity, passion, vision are the common values. Furthermore in the last couple of years, we've been designing some innovative premium projects in the sector of interior design (such as the Innovation Center in the Sustainable City). We believe that the UAE market is very promising for our bespoke services and for our architectural design services in particular.

Will any Pininfarina cars will be available to buy here?

In general, we do not directly sell what we design and our creations are always sold by our partners. For example, one out of six models of the Ferrari Sergio we designed was sold in the UAE two years ago under the Ferrari brand. In the future, it is quite possible that other limited-edition models will be available in the UAE because we are establishing relationship with other car brands in the super premium sector.

The company is renowned for its collaborations with Italian/European carmakers, but it has moved into the Chinese market in recent times — how has that varied?

The automotive business has changed dramatically in the last 10 years. We are still consulting with the traditional European carmakers despite the fact that they have established very big in-house design centres and they are obviously focusing on their own brands. Therefore, when it comes to the association of the Pininfarina brand on new car models, we see a huge potential for us with the luxury newcomers as shown by the recent collaborations with Fittipaldi with the EF7 and the Hybrid Kinetic Group with the H600 both unveiled [last month] in Geneva.

The H600 is an eco-friendly car — did that bring different design challenges?

We have been working on several electric platforms in the recent years and we boast a robust expertise in the sector of eco-friendly vehicles. The H600 represents the outcome of such expertise; it will be endowed with a very innovative package and it will be a leading model from 2020 onwards. At present, the Hybrid Kinetic Group strategy foresees the entry in the Chinese market and then in the US market. The UAE will be part of the picture soon after.

What else have you got planned?

Through the support of our partner and shareholder Tech Mahindra, we have the resources to plan a strong and global growth over the next years. We are ready to even more unleash the potential of our brand and our premium design and engineering services across the geographies and the sectors. In the future, several new Pininfarina design projects will be unveiled on a global scale and the UAE will play a relevant part in the global plan.

For more information, visit www.pininfarina.com^[1]

aworkman@thenational.ae^[2]