The International Jury of the fifth edition of the Biennale of the Contemporary Art in Florence conferred yesterday the award “Lorenzo il Magnifico”, the highest recognition of the Biennale, to the Olympic Torch designed by Pininfarina with the following motivation: ”Lorenzo de Medici ‘Il Magnifico’ bows before the beauty of pure synthesis of the Olympic Torch born from the multiform Turin-type genius and from the sublime Master of design, Pininfarina”. The Olympic Torch will be showed at the Fortezza da Basso in Florence throughout the manifestation.

The Torch is a Pininfarina’s competence-concentrated product. Pininfarina is a full Official Supplier of Torino 2006 with a significant economic investment. According to the agreement signed with Toroc, in fact, Pininfarina is responsible for the design, the engineering and the manufacturing of the 12,000 numbered Torches to be used in the Olympics, and 125 for the Paralympic Games, free of charge.

Compared to the Torch of Athens 2004, the flame designed by Pininfarina had to respect a requirement that is far stricter. The performances required by Toroc, suggested also by the problems come up with the Athens’ Torch, had leaded to prefer a fine-looking flame with great visibility and resistance to a more fragile and light one. More in details, the requirements for the Olympic Torch by Pininfarina were: visibility to the distance of 100 meters and also in the daylight, resistance to rain, snow, temperatures from –20°C to +25°C, to the wind up to 120 km/h to altitudes up to 5000 meters.

“It has been a demanding work but our subsidiary company, Pininfarina Extra, managed by my brother Paolo, has been able to develop a final product which we are satisfied and proud with both from the styling and from the performances point of view” asserts Andrea Pininfarina, CEO Pininfarina Group. “The Torch shows that we are able to make objects that are good-looking and, at the same time, functional.”