Pininfarina might be best known for its gorgeous looking Ferraris and the like, but these days the Italian design firm's fingerprints can be found on creations of all kinds. The latest non-road-going vehicle to feature its famous exterior styling is the R35 yacht, which carries the skin of a sports car on the outside and serious grunt on the inside.
This isn't Pininfarina's first foray into yacht-building. Last year it generated some noise in nautical circles by applying its famous curves to a superyacht concept cooked up with Italian shipbuilder Rossinavi called the Aurea. Billed as a design proposition, that 70-m (230-ft) yacht will only be built if a presumedly well-heeled buyer is willing to pay for it.
The R35, on the other hand, has been built together with Princess Yachts and Ben Ainslie Racing Technologies. Decidedly smaller than the Aurea, the 10-m (35-ft) vessel is powered by V8 engines and is capable of skipping across the water at up to 50 knots (93 km/h, 58 mph), thanks in part to its carefully crafted exterior.
This is where Pininfarina's know-how came to the fore. Using its expertise in fluid dynamics, it designed the yacht's bulwarks to feature intakes that both collect air for the engines and help quell tail vortexes that can hamper aerodynamics. They look pretty nice, too.
Up top, the cabin features an en-suite and a flexible seating area that can be converted to make extra space for entertaining.
This won't be the last we see from a Princess and Pininfarina collaboration, with the two companies also collaborating on the upcoming Princess X95 motor yacht pictured in the top left of the photo above. Not a lot of information is available on that one yet, but the R35 is set to debut at the Cannes Yachting Festival in September.
Source: Princess Yachts