Heraldite

- Srinivas Krishnan

  Wonder what made Standard-Triumph give the internal codename of ‘Zobo’ for the Herald project. While that reason may not be known, the codename was rather appropriate. You see, the prototypes styled by the company’s in-house design team were hideous and if your command of Tibetan was good, then you would know that zobo is defined as ‘a Tibetan pack animal of indeterminate sex.’

With a name like that and a body to match, StandardTriumph’s legendary technical chief Harry Webster knew that he had to seek help elsewhere to redesign the car. That help came in the form of a prolific Italian designer called Giovanni Michelotti. Instead of simply redesigning Zobo, Michelotti quickly penned the lines, of what would eventually be known as the Herald, from scratch – and these lines would remain virtually untouched right up to production. The ugly Zobo metamorphosed into a beautiful Herald.

What’s interesting is that Michelotti didn’t speak English, Webster didn’t speak Italian – they both spoke in French and managed to put out some good work together for many years. Other than the low-slung Herald series, Michelotti designed a bunch of cars for Standard-Triumph, including the famous Spitfire, TR4, Stag and Dolomite. Michelotti was of course responsible for a few Ferraris and Maseratis while at Vignale, and he was also the stylist behind the BMW 1500 New Class in the 1960s, which created the concept of the sports sedan.