On 15 June 1936, a car destined to make history appeared in Milan. Called “Topolino” (the Italian name for Mickey Mouse), it featured the rounded, appealing lines of the “little mouse”. Designed by Dante Giacosa, the Topolino was a small though complete vehicle, one of the most futuristic of its kind, built for two people with luggage and equipped with a 567 cc four-cylinder engine which enabled it to reach a speed of 80 km per hour. It cost just over 5,000 lire, the equivalent, at that time, of a year’s salary of a blue-collar worker! Production totalled 100 cars a day and its success was immediate: the Topolino became a cultural phenomenon and heralded the birth of Post-War Italian design.

To see more examples, visit the La Triennale Design Museum in viale Alemagna.