The ultimate italian coachbuilder site
The ultimate italian coachbuilder site
The collaboration between Vignale and the British Triumph began with the project of the new Herald utility model, for which Michelotti proposed a range of three bodies (sedan, coupé and cabriolet) of modern lines even if of doubtful “Italian style”. The project did not envisage a self-supporting body but, for cost reasons, a separate chassis. The Herald debuted in April 1959 at the Royal Albert Hall in London.
The line of the 3-box, 2-door Triumph Herald, designed by Giovanni Michelotti, was beautiful and elegant, while much attention was paid to the finish and equipment. As for the Herald’s aesthetics, its conception was due to Harry Webster, a senior executive of the Standard-Triumph Group, who, returning from his vacation in Sorrento, passed by Michelotti’s in Turin to see if he had made the required corrections to the Zobo prototype developed by the technical team headed by Arthur Ballard. Leaving his family to wait in the car, Webster went up to Michelotti’s studio, which had not yet begun work on the project, and came out after 9 hours with the final version of the Herald (moreover, totally new compared to the Zobo).
The story of Carrozzeria Vignale represents one of the many somewhat forgotten success stories born against the backdrop of an Italy that was torn apart by the Second World War and which, starting from the end of the 1950s, was able to recover enough to know a real miracle. economical just a few years later.
