Giorgetto Giugiaro extols life-saving technology in modern cars after serious accident

"I am alive. And I owe it to the technology that I have helped, in my own small way, to shape'. This was explained to La Stampa by Giorgetto Giugiaro, the historic car designer who at the age of 87 survived an accident in Sardinia after his car overturned and ended up in a cliff. "If I had been in a car from 15 years ago, which is almost the average age of cars on Italian roads, I probably wouldn't be here to tell the story,' he points out. 'Statistics don't lie: a new car, with its safety features, offers seven times more chance of surviving an accident than one from 15 years ago.

'But here a wound opens up, one of those reflections that weigh more than a crumpled off-road car,' he explains in the pages of the newspaper. 'Today, safety is a luxury. Those who can afford a new car have a better chance of getting home alive. In 2024, in Italy, we counted 173,364 road accidents. How many of those drivers, in outdated cars, didn't have my luck?". "Technology saves lives, but it is a costly salvation. And that, for someone like me, who has always wanted to design cars for everyone, is a burning thought,' he continues. 'Don't get me wrong: I'm not here to lecture. I'm just a man who got out of a flipped car, looked in the mirror and saw not just a survivor, but a privileged one'.

'Now I'm in Turin, in my creative lair, where ideas don't stop, not even with an orthopaedic brace,' he concludes. 'And maybe, who knows, a new line, a new idea, a new way of thinking about safety will emerge from this mishap. Because the future, like cars, is drawn one line at a time'.