In memory of Bruno Sacco (1933–2024)

Remembering an Italian master of German automotive design

by Professor Dr. Peter Zec

Thirty years have passed since I had the honour and pleasure of meeting the Italian-German designer Bruno Sacco. Over a period of four decades, he has shaped the design of Mercedes-Benz models and thus made automotive history. But I will remember him not only as head of design at Mercedes, but also as a great and generous personality, because he surprised me more than once – among other things, he once told me that I was stubborn, but more about that later.

Bruno Sacco was born in Udine in 1933 and started out studying at the Polytechnic University of Turin. He interrupted his studies in 1956 though, to dedicate himself entirely to his passion: automotive design. He gained his first experience at the “Carrozzerie” Ghia and Pinin Farina. At the age of 25 (1958), he went to Stuttgart and began his long and successful career there, initially as a designer, and from 1975 onwards as head designer at Mercedes-Benz, a position he held until his retirement in 1999.

From rock bottom to the pinnacle of a designer's career

Even though Sacco’s contribution to the development of the Mercedes-Benz brand is undisputed today, there was a time when he faced fierce opposition: in 1991, Mercedes introduced its new S-Class – 5.11 metres long and 2.16 metres wide. With these dimensions the S-Class was too wide for standard garages and car-carrying trains. It was not long before the German media landscape was full of gloating and scathing criticism, and Bruno Sacco and the Mercedes-Benz design team found themselves facing a public sentiment, the modern equivalent of which would probably be a full-blown shitstorm. My view of the design, on the contrary, was entirely different, because I found the reasoning behind the new dimensions thoroughly plausible and, above all, strategically well-thought-out. The aim was simply to exploit the weakness of the luxury cars from Cadillac and Rolls-Royce at the time and take over the top position in the luxury segment with a newly dimensioned car. The conventional S-Class was much too small and ordinary to achieve this. And let’s be honest – is there any S-Class driver who really gives much thought to an average-sized garage? In any case, this model was a great international success. The plan worked out. Design can’t do more than that. I kept the name Bruno Sacco in mind.

Three years later, in 1994, we awarded Bruno Sacco and his team the honorary title “Design Team of the Year” in recognition of this achievement and the many other iconic vehicles that had been created under Sacco’s leadership and that are still considered absolute classics in the history of automotive design today. During our first phone call, in which I informed Signore Sacco of the distinction, he was delighted and promised to come to the award ceremony at the Aalto Theatre, the opera house in Essen, with his entire team, and to enter the stage. He kept his word. Five buses were eventually needed to transport the 175 employees to Essen, where they literally stood in the spotlight and were celebrated by the design scene on stage. Remembering this scene still gives me goosebumps to this day.

This distinction as Design Team of the Year also came at a time when automotive design was still regarded as pure “styling”, the mere “beautification” of what the engineers had constructed. In contrast to furniture designers, for example, car designers were not yet personalities whose names were known outside of insider circles. The accolade gave Bruno Sacco a new-found visibility as the charismatic design personality he was – in the business and design world as well as within the company. He remained loyal to our award ceremonies for a long time and even became a member of the Red Dot Jury after his retirement from Mercedes-Benz. Before that, however, it almost came to a rift between him and me.

The stubborn minds’ meeting

The background to this was that, at the time, we had the German photographer Hans Hansen take a photo of one of the award-winning products for each of our yearbook covers. He was given a completely free hand in terms of both the type of photo and the choice of product. In 1995, he chose, of all things, an ice scraper from Mercedes-Benz as the cover motif, which had received an award for outstanding design quality. The photo was brilliant: Hansen had modified the ice scraper to such an extent that it was barely recognisable as such, instead looking more like a futuristic green object. When I wanted to obtain the okay from Bruno Sacco, as a matter of courtesy, although it was not really necessary, he was, in contrast to me, anything but enthusiastic: “Mr Zec, we produce cars, not ice scrapers. How did you even get hold of that thing?” It turned out that it was the company’s marketing department that had submitted the product and that Sacco wanted nothing to do with this distinction. He simply refused to give his consent to its publication, which put me in a dilemma, since there was only this one yearbook cover. I decided to publish the photo without further details of what exactly could be seen on it, had the book and posters produced, and prepared myself for the worst should Bruno Sacco eventually discover it.

Cover Design Innovations Yearbook '95

And of course it did not escape his notice – after all, he also attended this award ceremony. When we met that evening, he said to me in his typical Italian accent: “My dear Mr Zec, you really are even more stubborn than I am.” I replied: “But nobody will recognise the ice scraper or associate it with you. There was no way back for me.” To which Sacco replied: “No, it’s all right. Could you send me ten posters and the Yearbook?”

Farewell to a remarkable design personality

In fact, this story ultimately brought us even closer together as human beings and we work well together later on when he was a member of the jury. In 2004, he took to the stage for the last time at a Red Dot Gala, where he gave the laudatory speech for the Pininfarina Design Team. In 2006, he was a member of the Red Dot Jury one last time before he finally left for his well-deserved retirement.

Throughout his career, Sacco remained true to his working philosophy, which calls for a maximum of innovation while at the same time respecting the traditional values of the brand: “Mercedes can only counter this trend [of internationalisation in automotive design] if it remains aware of tradition every step of the way,” said Sacco in an interview with Reinhard Kiehl for the 1994 yearbook on the occasion of being honoured as Design Team of the Year.

Bruno Sacco as laudator for the Pininfarina Design Team 2004

Bruno Sacco never saw himself as a design star. He was well aware of the fact that the design of a vehicle is always the result of a team effort: “In the early development phase, we tend to say to each other, to a certain extent, ‘This is Mr X’s model, and that is Mr Y’s model’.  But then it becomes more and more of a factory design. The more this condenses, the more it comes to a finish, the less you can recognise the individual designer. [...]” It was for this very reason, too, that it was so important to him to take his entire team onto the stage with him at the award ceremony in Essen’s Aalto Theatre. He did, however, reserve the right to have the last word: “If some of my colleagues in the team had had their way, the SL wouldn’t have turned out the same, and the S-Class would look quite different too. The vehicles turned out the way they did because that was what I wanted in the end,” Sacco told Kiehl.

On 19 September 2024, he passed away in Sindelfingen at the age of 90, 30 years after we first met. I hope he had good and fulfilling last years. My condolences and those of our Red Dot community go out to his family. We will honour the memory of his contributions to automotive design.