As a special guest of Mahindra Racing at this weekend’s Formula E street race, Automobili Pininfarina CEO Michael Perschke has announced plans to bring ex-Formula 1 racing driver Nick Heidfeld on board Pininfarina’s PF0 Hypercar project. PF0 will deliver staggering performance for a road car, according to company expectations, including acceleration to 62 mph in less than two seconds, breaking the 250-mph top speed barrier and providing zero emissions range of over 300 miles. Heidfeld will be an integral member of the team developing the PF0 vehicle dynamics programme from the beginning of 2019, prior to the all-electric hypercar’s on-sale date of late-2020.
“Pininfarina has an unprecedented heritage of delivering cars that are both beautiful to look at and technically innovative” said Luca Borgogno, Automobili Design Director. “Creating this combination in the first Pininfarina-branded road car is a dream come true. The design of PF0 will espouse purity, beauty and innovation. Working closely with Pininfarina SpA we have created three new images that give prospective owners an exciting preview of the design features we will introduce on this incredible hypercar.”
Michael Perschke added that the PF0 is borne from the 50 year old dream of Battista ‘Pinin’ Farina, to see a stand-alone Pininfarina-branded range of cars that are both beautiful and technologically advanced. PF0 will deliver enormous power and driver thrills in abundance.
“We have a specific strategy in place to develop road car technology inspired by motorsport” Perschke said. “Nick Heidfeld has more experience racing in Formula E than any other driver and we are delighted that from next year he will help deliver race-bred, electrifying performance in PF0.”
Nick Heidfeld responded that the opportunity to join the Automobili Pininfarina family and develop cars that will deliver performance unlike anything before them is fantastic and that he is looking forward to sharing his motorsport knowledge with the new engineering and design team at Automobili Pininfarina.
Automobili Pininfarina was officially launched to the world’s media in Rome, Italy in April this year, where it announced its plan to sustainably develop and produce fully-electric ultra-luxury cars in low volumes at the pinnacle of design and desirability in their respective segments.
North America is likely to be Automobili Pininfarina’s largest market for sales given the passionate interest in both electric-power and Pininfarina-designed cars, and so the new business is now engaging with prospective retailer partners as it seeks to deliver world-class client care as part of its specialist vehicle ownership strategy.
Image: Artist's sketch of the proposed PF0, courtesy of Automobili Pininfarina
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