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pininfarina is best known for designing ferraris and other italian cars. but it has also done objects and other vehicles. the company recently designed coca-cola’s high tech vending machine and has now done a new eurostar high-speed train. pininfarina has also designed high-speed trains for spanish railways and cars for swiss, danish and norwegian railroads as well as trams and light rail.
the etr 500 was the first italian project for a high speed train, appeared in 1985 as the result of a joint project by ferrovie dello stato, breda and pininfarina. it was a demanding project, all the more so in view of the characteristics of the rail infrastructure of the day.
it was a challenge that pininfarina responded to with far-reaching stylistic and aerodynamic research, which led to the creation of a model with a high technological impact, that was extremely flexible in terms of operating requirements and could transport up to 700 people on each train.
along the years pininfarina has also designed high speed trains for spanish railways; rolling stock for swiss, danish and norwegian railways; automated light rail cars in lille, northern france; and trams for cities in italy, greece, sweden and turkey.
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