Anatole “Tony” Lapine, respected Latvian-born designer, and former design chief at Porsche has died at his home in Baden-Baden, Germany. Lapine died just one month before his 82nd birthday.
Born in 1930, Lapine started his design career with an apprenticeship at Daimler-Benz, before moving to the U.S. to work for GM. Under GM’s Design chief Bill Mitchell, Lapine worked at GM’s famed Studio X where he contributed to such advanced GM concept cars as the 1960 CERV I, the 1962 Corvair Monza GT, the 1963 Corvair Monza SS and the 1963-’64 CERV II. During this same time period, Lapine also worked with Larry Shinoda on the design of the 1963 Corvette Sting Ray. By 1965, Lapine moved to Germany to head up GM’s Opel Research Center, but by 1969, he was lured away to go to work for Porsche.
As Design Chief at Porsche, Lapine guided the styling of Porsche’s entire line of new front-engined sports cars, including the 924, the 944 and the 928. According to Porsche’s current design boss Michael Mauer, “He shaped Porsche sports-car design over more than two decades. As a designer, he didn’t follow fashion, but was forever setting new trends with his concepts.” Lapine’s death comes on the heels of the passing of another Porsche design legend, Ferdinand “Butzi” Porsche, who passed away last month.
