Federico Formenti

Italian Touring figurinista, hired after the war as a very young visualiser, whom Aston Martin credits with the DB4 body built under Touring licence at Newport Pagnell. Ruoteclassiche calls him Carlo Felice Bianchi Anderloni’s design right-hand man and, after Touring closed in 1966, a mentor to younger designers at Alfa Romeo Centro Stile.

After the war, still very young, Federico Formenti was hired at Carrozzeria Touring in Milan. Giovanni Bianchi Anderloni later recalled him as the brother-in-law of Aquilino Gilardi, already the firm’s head draughtsman. Serge Bellu writes that Felice Bianchi Anderloni engaged him after the Liberation. Formenti described himself as a figurinista; Ruoteclassiche says his signature is on many Touring drawings and that he was Carlo Felice Bianchi Anderloni’s design right-hand man.

Bellu and Wikipedia treat the 1948 Ferrari 166 MM barchetta as an early major project; Driven to Write shows his signature on a contemporary scale drawing. After Felice died in 1948, Carlo Felice took the house. Ruoteclassiche credits Formenti with a decisive contribution to the Alfa Romeo 6C 2500 Villa d’Este; Questione di stile calls that coupé one of Carlo Felice’s first works after his father’s death, with Formenti as the skilled draughtsman beside him.

Aston Martin’s DB4 archive says John Wyer turned to Touring after a two-seat prototype shown at Turin in 1956. Engineer Harold Beach developed a platform chassis for Touring’s Superleggera construction, and the archive says Formenti penned the new body. Two prototypes were built in Milan before Newport Pagnell built the DB4 under licence from Touring using its body jigs.

Italian Wikipedia credits Formenti with the Lancia Flaminia GT Coupé and Convertible shown at Turin in 1958: Superleggera bodies with twin headlamps in pointed eyelids beside the Lancia grille and trapezoidal lamps on a falling tail. Ruoteclassiche also names the Touring Flaminia models and the Lamborghini 350 GT among cars to which he contributed decisively. In late 1965 the Jensen Museum says he drew the CV8-replacement body Jensen bought.

Touring closed in 1966. Ruoteclassiche says Formenti followed Bianchi Anderloni to Alfa Romeo Centro Stile and helped train younger Alfa designers. Licata, reporting Favilla, says that in 1970 Formenti made the missing 1:10 four-view Alfetta drawing overnight after Scarnati requested it. Ruoteclassiche places the same drawings on the eve of the style-approval meeting. Bellu dates him 1925–1995.