Marcio Piancastelli

Márcio Piancastelli (1936-2015) was a car designer. He is best known for his work at Volkswagen do Brasil where he designed the Volkswagen SP2 and the Volkswagen Brasília, as well as redesigning the Brazilian market Volkswagen Type 3. Piancastelli died on June 18, 2015, having suffered from serious illnesses for years.
Career.
When he was 26, Piancastelli won the Lucio Meira Prize design contest with his designs for a small sports car called the Itapuan, winning him a one-year internship at Carrozzeria Ghia in Turin, Italy. Subsequently, he was hired by Willys Overland Do Brasil where he worked on the development of "Project M", which would later become the Ford Corcel after Ford took over the company in 1967. Before that project was finished though, Piancastelli left Willys and joined Volkswagen, where he produced his most famous designs. Piancastelli's first project at Volkswagen in 1969 was to facelift the Volkswagen Type 3 for the Brazilian market. The next project he took on was designing a car to compete with the Brazilian made Puma while still using the already existent Volkswagen Type III platform. The result was the Volkswagen SP2. The original car used an existing 1600cc Volkswagen engine but that model was quickly discontinued and all later models used an upgraded 1700cc engine. Piancastelli's next big project was to build an economy car off of the Volkswagen Beetle chassis that would be a successor to the Beetle. Piancastelli's design became the Volkswagen Brasília and was a great success, selling over 950,000 units in Brazil and 180,000 internationally.