Motoring with Paul Jolly: Giorgetto Giugiaro - the name you never knew but he's the greatest designer of 20th century

Here is a man responsible for some of the most extraordinary automotive designs ever, who was born in 1938 yet who continues to this day designing everything from cars to watches, cameras and cathedral organs and much more besides.

Aged 88 and from Piedmont in Northern Italy, he is the name you never knew but whose cars you probably even owned without knowing who designed them.

My school day pin-ups inside my desk featured glossy images of the fabulous Iso Grifo, Alfa Romeo 2600, De Tomaso and the British Gordon Keeble to name but a few. The list of his designs is quite remarkable and too long to tabulate here. But you will be surprised at some.

I realise that my passion for classic car design has always been driven by the shape because that is the first feature your eyes are drawn to and this young man was making shapes for design studios Bertone and Ghia while still in his 20s. He was named car designer of the century in 1999 and rightly so.

Remember the film star cars with James Bond’s Lotus Esprit and Back to the Future’s DeLorean? And who can forget the Dino Coupe or Lamborghini Muira, both from The Italian Job?

Not just supercars but buses taxis and minivans.

It was not only Europe that benefitted from his prodigious talent. There were designs for Hyundai, Daewoo, Mazda and Suzuki and many more over the decades.

Probably the most surprising cars to have been crafted by his pen are the more modest European family cars such as the 1974 VW Golf which arguably rescued Volkswagen from oblivion at the end of the Beetle’s life, the Fiat Panda and Uno, both of which served modest family life for generations of Italians following on from the baby Fiat 500 and 600.

The pronunciation of his great name has often been tricky. JAW-JETTO GEE-JAR-O is about as close as I can get.

Italian auto designers can be separated into two categories. Giorgetto Giugiaro and everybody else. Named the greatest and most influential designer of the 20th century.