Giugiaro began at Fiat's in-house styling department in 1959, moved to Gruppo Bertone from 1959 to 1965, then spent two years at Ghia before a brief stint at SIRP in 1968. That same year, aged 29, he co-founded Italdesign Giugiaro with Mantovani — who handled commercial and engineering operations while Giugiaro led design. The arrangement created a studio capable of handling full vehicle development from sketch to running prototype, distinguishing Italdesign from pure styling houses.
From the late 1960s, Giugiaro moved away from the curves of his Bertone period toward a signature angular vocabulary he described as "folded paper." The resulting cars defined a generation:
Volkswagen Golf Mk1 (1974) — Giugiaro's most commercially successful design; the template for the modern front-wheel-drive family hatchback; the [[volkswagen-golf-gti|Golf GTI]] variant became a cultural phenomenon that shaped hot-hatch culture worldwide.
[[lotus-esprit|Lotus Esprit]] S1 (1976) — wedge-profile mid-engine sports car, the folded-paper aesthetic at its most sculptural; globally famous from the 1977 James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me.
[[bmw-m1|BMW M1]] (1977) — Italdesign designed and partially engineered this first BMW M-division car, a mid-engine supercar that also spawned the [[bmw-m1-procar-championship|M1 Procar Championship]], where [[nigel-mansell|Nigel Mansell]] and [[alain-prost|Alain Prost]] competed.
DMC DeLorean (1981) — stainless-steel-bodied gull-wing; immortalised by Back to the Future; among the most recognisable designs of the decade despite the company's collapse.
Giugiaro was named Car Designer of the Century in 1999 and inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame in 2002. He holds six Compasso d'Oro awards, including a lifetime recognition in 1984.
Italdesign's motorsport adjacency came chiefly through performance cars it bodied. The [[bmw-m1|BMW M1]]'s body was intended for Le Mans GT racing; homologation required the road version. The relationship with [[maserati-vehicles|Maserati]] ran deep: Giugiaro designed the Ghibli (1966), Bora (1971), Merak (1972), and Boomerang concept (1972) during his Ghia and early Italdesign period, returning decades later for the 3200 GT (1998), Spyder (2001), and Coupé (2002).
Italdesign also bodied Bugatti's EB 112, EB 118, and EB 218 concepts in the 1990s, and produced the Nazca C2 concept (1992) for BMW — a mid-engine study that influenced later supercar thinking. The Lancia Megagamma (1978) is credited as the "conceptual birth mother of the MPV/minivan movement," influencing the Renault Espace and Chrysler minivans.
Volkswagen Group acquired a majority stake in Italdesign Giugiaro in 2010, with full acquisition in 2015. Giugiaro departed to found GFG Style with his son Fabrizio the same year, continuing independent design work to the present. Italdesign continues under Audi Group ownership as a vehicle development and low-volume production studio.
[[volkswagen-golf-gti|Volkswagen Golf GTI]] — Giugiaro's highest-production design
[[lotus-esprit|Lotus Esprit]] — folded-paper mid-engine icon
[[bmw-m1|BMW M1]] — first M-division car, designed and engineered by Italdesign
[[bmw-m1-procar-championship|BMW M1 Procar Championship]] — racing series built on the M1
[[maserati-vehicles|Maserati Vehicles]] — decades-long design partnership (Ghibli through Coupé)
[[maserati-250f|Maserati 250F]] — earlier Maserati racing era; context for the marque
[[nigel-mansell|Nigel Mansell]] — competed in M1 Procar series
[[alain-prost|Alain Prost]] — competed in M1 Procar series
[[renault-engines|Renault Engines]] — Giugiaro designed Renault 21 (1986) and Renault 19 (1988)
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