Assault And A Battery

Pininfarina's carbon-fibre Battista is 1,900 horses of all-electric fury.

- Viju Mathew

AT A DEAD STOP under a cloudy sky, I reposition my hands on the steering wheel and ensure the proper bend of the elbows, oblivious to whether or not I’m breathing. Focus, instead, is on projecting a confident nonchalance to the engineer in the passenger seat, but it’s a struggle. Tom Petty was right—the waiting is the hardest part. “All clear,” crackles the walkie-talkie communique from the spotter ahead, and with Pavlovian response, my right foot meets the floor and the all-electric, 1,900hp Pininfarina Battista feels like it might warp physics in its attempt to cover zero to 100km/h in 1.86 seconds.

The rollout of Pininfarina’s first solo production vehicle in its 93-year history, however, has been quite a bit slower. After Battista ‘Pinin’ Farina launched his eponymous carrozzeria in 1930, it quickly gained renown for collaborations with the likes of Maserati, Alfa Romeo and, most notably, Ferrari—all wanting to have their models dressed in the atelier’s patrician bodywork, which looked like it had been sculpted by the wind and came to define the golden age of motorsport. Although most coachbuilders shuttered when growing postwar demand increased automation, Pininfarina persevered all the way into the electric vehicle (EV) era, though now owned by India’s Mahindra Group and divided into a commercial design house and the nascent automaker responsible for the controlled fury I’m currently piloting.