Who is Bruno Sacco?

Former director of design of the world's oldest automaker; Mercedes-Benz. For 39 years, this styling czar has overseen the design evolution that has solidified Mercedes-Benz's status quo as the best automaker in the world during his time. His design roots traces back to Tarvisio in Italy where he once spotted a 1950 Studebaker Commander Regal and shouted "I will be the great designer of automobiles!". And history did happened.



Sacco studied mechanical engineering at the Technical University of Turin and has attempted to get a job at two Italian design outfits Ghia and Pinin Farina with no luck. Fortunately, this failure took him to Germany to find work and was eventually hired at Mercedes-Benz in 1958. After learning the Mercedes-Benz Way Of Doing Things (I love this phrase) which took Sacco several years to get accustomed with and by and large, The Mercedes-Benz Way is even difficult for the German themselves due to lack or absence of any design guidelines, it was a corporate culture once forged by its founder Gottlieb Daimler and was described as "Nothing But The Best". And the best was delivered.

And yes it happened, from the drawing board to the assembly line, under Sacco's helm, Mercedes-Benz has rolled out several classics and soon-to-be modern classics that we used to love and drive around the streets of Metro Manila, classics that we love to use and abuse over and over again, come hell or high water. These classics consists of the legendaries such as the W123, W124, W126 and best of all, the revolutionary W201 which is now in its 25th year and officially a modern classic declared not by Mercedes Enthusiast magazine but by the Official Mercedes-Benz Classic Magazine. Imagine a world today if Sacco has been hired to do design at Ghia or PininFarina?!?. Things will never be the same.