Fioravanti to unveil LF1 Racecar Concept in Geneva

If Fioravanti wants to build a street car that can apply Formula One design principles and technology to a production vehicle that sounds great. But it doesn't look like this model here is that car. It looks like a pure race car.

The Fioravanti LF1 will be making its way to Geneva next week and it's hard to know what to make of this concept. At least, until Fioravanti unveils the car and we can get to learn more about it.

But Fioravanti's second Geneva concept offering is quite obviously a vehicle intended for the public road. The TRIS is a compact, 3-door concept which the automaker actually debuted back in 2000. Fioravanti may believe that this vehicle's time has come given that it's a car designed to be as low-cost, production-friendly as possible in these troubling times where automakers are looking to cut costs.

The TRIS comes with a set of highly standardized parts in order to create a far more streamlined supply chain for the vehicle's production. For example, all 3-doors of the car are exactly the same as are the head and tail lamps. The car will also make use of recycled materials in its construction.

The Turin-based Fioravanti was founded by Leonardo Fioravanti in 1987 after having worked at Pininfarina for 24 years. Fioravanti helped develop such models there as the Ferrari 308 GTB and the 288 GTO.

This is the kind of new concept in vehicle production that car makers have been quietly researching for years. Maybe Fioravanti is onto something. It won't be the least bit surprising if one day soon a large automaker comes along and buys up this TRIS concept and uses the whole process to put a low-cost, low-emissions compact vehicle on the road.