1981 Fiat VSS Concept
The Institute of Development in Automotive Engineering, or I.DE.A for short, was founded in Turin in 1978 by the entrepreneur Franco Mantegazza and the architect Renzo Piano. The institute’s first project a commission by Fiat, who invested $3.25-million in exploring how the cars of the 1990s could be designed and built more efficiently.
Piano worked with Peter Rice on the I.DE.A project. Rice, a structural engineer, developed the roof structure of the Sydney Opera House for Jørn Utzon, and then worked with Piano on the Pompidou Center in Paris.
After some years of work on the I.DE.A brief, the pair deduced that welded steel would remain the material of choice for constructing a car’s chassis, due to its inherent strength, cost and ability to absorb energy in an impact. However, the efficiency of this could be greatly improved if a standardized steel space-frame was adopted, to which sub assemblies or modules could be attached.
Words by CarDesignNews
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