Currently owned by the Indian company Mahindra, which has planned an initial investment of just over 81 million euros to start up this new car brand, Pininfarina is expected to hand over the leadership of this new business segment to the former president of Audi in India , Michael Perschke. This, with the objective of, according to advances by the British Autocar, launching a total of four models, in the next five years.
For already known internally only as Montana Project, the new brand will already have, however, a defined name: Pininfarina Automobili . With Mahindra forecasting a total investment in the order of 408 million euros, over the next five years, as a way to guarantee the implementation of this new car brand.
A super sports car to fight the Bugatti Veyron
As for models, the statement will start with a top-of-the-range proposal, code-named PF-Zero . Basically, a 100% electric supercar, built on a modular platform and with engines developed together with the small electric supercar manufacturer Rimac, as well as with the contribution of the Mahindra Formula E team.
The objective is that the model, which should derive from the concept H2 Speed, will announce powers in the order of 1500 hp, thus becoming a direct competitor of the Bugatti Veyron.
Three SUV, the biggest to rival the Lamborghini Urus
In addition to this electric super sports car, three SUVs, with the largest, code-named PF-One , to assume itself as a proposal of high performance, with the declared ambition to rival the Lamborghini Urus. The other two promise to stand up to Porsche's two most successful models, the Macan and the Cayenne.Moreover, and if the super sports car promises powers on the same level as the Veyron, the sportiest of the SUVs promises values around 950 hp, taken from a battery pack with a capacity of around 140 kWh. Able to allow, among other feats, accelerations from 0 to 100 km/h in less than three seconds.
The smaller SUVs, on the other hand, should appear equipped with lower capacity batteries, although they will certainly announce values at the top of their respective segments.
Supersports should arrive in 2020
Thanks also to Mahindra's financial support, the first model of the new Pininfarina Automobili should arrive as early as 2020, after a period of development that, it seems, will start this year. The new brand will operate completely independently of the electrical division of the Indian automobile group (Mahindra Electric), with operations in Europe.
Paolo Pininfarina, president of the famous Italian design studio and grandson of the founder, Battista Farina, assumed, at the Geneva Motor Show, that his grandfather's desire to build cars “will eventually become a reality, and in the future not too far away”.
Pininfarina will be able to officially announce this new step during the 2018 Formula E World Championship race, which will take place in Rome, on April 14th.