Sakko biography

Vasily Kostin, with all this, for me, he remained a habit of a habit. His authority in the automotive industry was indisputable, but I really did not know anything about his biography, or about his views on auto design and auto industry. So I took up the search for only all the publications I read about him look extremely sparingly. Even the page biography of the authorship of Nika Green seems more likely to be dedicated to the achievements of Daimler-Benz than the personality of Bruno Sakko, his path and his views.

Which, in general, is understandable: the designer spent almost the whole career in one company, and did not like to attract the attention of journalists too much. In short, it was the exact opposite of the common image of the “rock star from auto-design”-extrovert and egocentric. When her father in M ​​was mobilized in the army, her mother and her son moved to her parents in Tarvizio, on the very border with Austria-it is not surprising that Bruno spoke well from his youth in German.

This is not to say that from that moment the fate of young Sakko was predetermined - by no means: after the war, he followed in the footsteps of his father, studying on a surveyor. They even write that, having graduated from the Antonio Dzanon Technical Institute in M, he became the youngest surveyor throughout Italy. It is funny to note: the decorative “aviation” styling of the Studybeker, who pushed Bruno Sakko to the car design, diametrically contradicts his own heritage.

But about that below! The young man, together with his father, often went to Turin, and once they went to the Turin car dealership. The Studebaker Commander Regal put up there aroused an interest in cars in it-the defiant-tributary “aviation” design of the great Frenchman Raymond Lawi contrasted sharply with everything that could be seen on the streets or in the exhibition halls of the car dealership.

For the first time seeing the amazing electric blue Studebaker, I froze in reverence, ”he recalled many years later. And soon he met exactly the same car at the house in Tarvizio, on the way to the tennis court - apparently, these are the American military from the occupation forces rode from the port in Trieste to serve in Austria. These were the wheels of fate! It is clear that you will not find anything about the US military.

But I began to look for photos from the Turin car dealership, and in the collection of Fiat, Rodolfo Malander found a picture of the Studebaker convertible with a “airplane” nose. To engage in cars, young Sakko in M ​​enters the Turin Polytechnic. In those years, Turin was perhaps the main center of the European automotive industry: the city was located in the Fiat and Lancia headquarters, four large car factories, as well as countless body studies-Bertone, Ghia, Michelotti, Pininfarina, not to mention dozens of smaller workshops.

Parents approved higher education, but therefore began to look for the opportunity to start a career as a car designer, and in order to gain experience, in M ​​he got a job as an interns at Carrozzeria Ghia. Sakko admired this concept: “It was a sensation,” he repeated more than once in an interview. Even the drawing of the "gildes" made by the hand of a young designer is preserved.

Just at that time, the company worked on the Chrysler Gilda concept in the “aerospace” style and compartment of the Karmann Ghia compartment on the chassis of the Volkswagen “bug”. With his knowledge of German, Bruno even managed to bring bridges with the Karmann bodybuilding company. But the novice designer decided not to look for a job after graduation from the university, but the details are not quite understandable: either in Italy something was not set for him, or the young man was so affected by the racing successes of the Mercedes-Benz brand, or the Call of the Ancestors woke up.

Be that as it may, through the German consulate in Turin, the young man handed the letter to Karl Wilfert himself, who in those years headed the development of bodies in the passenger division of the Daimler-Benz concern. Now, from the future, this step looks very far-sighted: the design unit in the Mercedes was then only formed. Bruno achieved his own-after a meeting at the Turin car dealership in the year, he was invited to an interview in Zindelfingen, according to which on January 13, he receives the position of a second stylist in a recently created design department, with a decent salary in German brands.

But soon the plans changed: he met a girl from Berlin, Annemari Ibe - in the year they got married, daughter Marina was born in M. And the designer lingered on a Mercedes. For long forty years, meanwhile, meanwhile, the post of first stylist a few months before him received an equally young but more experienced Frenchman, Paul, who had already managed to work as an assistant to the famous industrial designer Philip Sharbonno.

In the Mercedes structure, both worked under the leadership of the chief designer Friedrich Gaiger, who, in turn, was subordinate to Karl Wilfert, who headed the development of the bodies. Read on the topic:.