BELLACATTIVA

CLIENT: Centurion SERVICE: Concept Design of Exterior and Interior

BellaCattiva is not about designing just another cool car. It is about going back to a time when driving was pure joy and mechanical honesty, then rewriting that story in a modern form. Not nostalgia. Not retro. A parallel evolution where the past’s raw spirit meets today’s engineering.

The question

This project was born from a very specific question, one that felt like a real challenge to me: “Since you’re good at designing aircraft, can you also design cars?”

I met Tim Slater years ago, and we collaborated on several aircraft projects: racing airplanes and other unapologetically cool machines.

I grew up in Modena, surrounded by Ferrari, Maserati, Lamborghini. Cars were part of the landscape, part of the air you breathe. But my native language has always been flight. The real challenge was not technical. It was conceptual: can the logic of flight be translated into asphalt?

I said yes, because it felt reckless in exactly the right way.

A LOVE LETTER TO DRIVERS

BellaCattiva is built on a clear idea: an analog, pure machine with no filters between man and mechanics. A simple, lightweight inline six-cylinder turbodiesel, designed to deliver honest torque rather than chase empty horsepower numbers.

It is Ferrari and Ford together. Not versus. Italian refinement in the lines, American brutality in the mechanical heart. Elegance and rawness balanced within the same chassis. Soft, timeless surfaces. No stylistic hysteria. A shape that could belong to yesterday or tomorrow, yet exists only now.

The mood board speaks of worn leather gloves, hand-painted racing numbers, warm metal, and the smell of fuel. A manual gearbox. A real clutch. Adrenaline that is not simulated.

BellaCattiva is this. A love letter written to the driver.

The loop

The core idea is a harmonic loop flowing around the entire body. A continuous gesture that starts at the nose, travels along the flanks, and closes at the rear in one controlled movement.

On the sides, two ogival forms meet and tension against each other, creating a soft but deliberate balance. They are not decoration, but structural volumes shaping the car’s identity.

The harmony recalls classic cars of the past, yet it is disciplined by the logic of aerodynamic fuselages: no arbitrary cuts, only continuity and flow.

Designing Without Boundaries

With a thousand inputs on the table and a shared obsession for everything unapologetically cool, I began sketching without barriers or predefined borders. The only fixed points were clear: mid-engine layout, two uncompromising seats, and lightweight construction.

From there, the exploration exploded into variety. Street toys. Sand-eating dune machines. Coupés, buggies, radical interpretations that pushed in different directions yet spoke the same language. The common denominator was always the same: a precise balance between beauty and brutality.

The Name

At some point someone asked: beautiful or aggressive? The answer was both.

Beautiful in proportion. Cattiva in attitude. Elegant in line. Brutal in torque. BellaCattiva was not chosen as a marketing label. It emerged as a description. Between refinement and ferocity. Between Italy and America. Between flight and asphalt.

The variants

Project Status

BellaCattiva is currently in development.

The exploration continues through technical refinement, structural validation, and ongoing design evolution. This is not a finished product, but a living project.

If you are interested in learning more or exploring potential collaboration, please get in touch for further information.

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