by Wallace Wyss –

At the ArtCenter College (yes, they spell it as one word) which graduates most of the world’s car designers, there was a speech recently by “Sasha” Selipanov.

The bearded Russian-born designer graduated from ArtCenter in 2005, and has seen his career rocket upward at an incredible pace.

In his short career, he already worked for Bugatti and Lamborghini and recently took the job of head designer at Genesis.

And yet, on the internet, he’s most famous for a car he designed free lance, a car that was never built, a car that was only a proposal he did at night just to get reaction.

His first job for VW was not exciting enough, so at night, he started a website and posted more wild designs and those eventually led to jobs doing more exciting cars.

Sasha did this 512 GTO when he was still working for VW, working at night. It got him a good job at Lamborghini.

The car that everyone remembers as the one never built (I don’t know if Ferrari ever saw it) was called the 612 GTO. As everyone knows the original 250 GTO was a product of the ‘60s and ironically didn’t have a body designer per se, only Ing. Bizzarrini, who mocked up the shape by plastering the front end of an existing Ferrari with the Italian equivalent of Bondo and testing it on the autostrada at night until he attained a certain speed and then that was the shape they went with for production (hey, who needs stylists!).

Sasha’s design has the same signature three elliptical air intakes as the original. The side view has some interesting side vents. The original 250 GTO also had slanted side vents, sometimes two sometimes three.

I think it’s a fresher design than Ferrari themselves did on their 599 GTO, and it’s too bad Ferrari didn’t come to him hat in hand and buy it.

I asked Sasha if I could attach one of his illustrations to the back of one of my custom denim jackets and of course I want the 612 GTO but haven’t decided which view, there’s so many good ones.

I am not sure if his career path could be followed by another young designer—some companies, I imagine, might not cotton to a young designer doing free designs at night depicting other marques (and it ticked off his wife no end!). But hey, it worked for him and I eagerly look for exciting cars to come in future Genesis cars.

Let us know what you think in the Comments.

 
 
THE AUTHOR: Wallace Wyss has authored 18 books on cars. He is also a fine artist, currently putting prints of his latest car portraits on denim as a form of sales promotion. Interested vendors can reach him at Photojournalistpro2@Gmail.com.

 
 
 

Summary

Article Name

Sasha And The Ferrari That Never Was

Description

On the internet, designer Sasha Selipanov is most famous for a car he designed free lance, a car that was never built, a car that was only a proposal he did at night just to get reaction.

Author

Wallace Wyss