Milan, Italy
Ultimate innovation, sleek luxury-designed exteriors and interiors, and best-in-class cabin space push Lamborghini, Ferrari, Pininfarina, Volvo, Audi, and Umberto Palermo to the top of 2025 European car designs making the year a smashing hit and with significant wins for 2025 Good Design Awards bestowed upon the world class brands by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design.
Case in point: Lamborghini’s 2025 Temerario is a 907-hp hybrid heaven with its twin-turbo V8 and three electric motors marking this Lambo’s latest a masterpiece.
In the broad spectrum of supercars and the brands that make them, Lamborghini has always been over on the edgy side, making cars that prioritize attitude and style as much as power and performance.
Designed by Mitja Borkert, Design Director, Centro Stile Lamborghini, the 2025 Temerario is no exception.
Borkert’s Temerario revs to over 10,000 rpm, a number that’s more like a motorcycle than a supercar. The car has two electric motors up front, one turning each wheel, plus a third one that’s integrated into the engine that’s mounted behind the driver.
It’s a bold choice to launch a car like this, with lots of tricky, off-camber corners and ridiculously high speeds, a great place to let a car with over 900 hp stretch its legs.
Next, comes Pininfarina’s Battista Targamerica, which when the covers are removed– and the roof–form a super styled, unique car and the world’s first coach-built electric hypercar.
Designed by Dave Amantea, Francesco Cundari, Sara Campagnolo, Davide Valpreda, and Giorgio Ciravegna at Automobili Pininfarina GmbH., the coach-built masterpiece offers unique open-top driving experience through redesigned carbon fibre bodywork and monocoque.
Hand-built by the atelier’s artisans in Cambiano in collaboration with Pininfarina SpA, it is a complete expression of an owner’s personality reflecting their individuality and history, their tastes, interests and unique life story.
A true example of the brand’s “Dream Cars. Made Real” motto.
American Prize for Design Laureate Flavio Manzoni from Ferrari has two of “The Best” for 2025 offering the world’s finest, rare, classic, and modern performance car icons.
The Ferrari 296 Speciale and 296 Speciale A define a new benchmark in terms of driving thrills for the Ferrari production range with its astonishing capabilities in terms of agility while taking full advantage of capabilities of the electric drive system.
How special is this Speciale? The Speciale’s biggest visual distinguishers are in the back. Winglets have sprouted from its hips to improve airflow and add downforce. Between these “Gamma” wings is an active rear flap with a new intermediate position when full downforce isn’t required.
Manzoni’s range-topping Ferrari F80 is a limited-series hybrid hypercar that marks a shift from V12 to a high-performance, electrified 3.0-liter V6 engine. It boasts nearly 1,200 horsepower, active suspension, and advanced active aerodynamics derived from the 499P, generating 1,050 kg of downforce at 250 km/h.
Under its exotic designed body, there are active aerodynamic elements, an eight-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission, and an active suspension system have all be specially tuned to unlock the F80’s envelope-pushing performance.
The Volvo EX30, designed by Florian Mockenhaupt, Katharina Sachs, Maxime Prevoteaux, Lisa Reeves, Clément Alliot, Patrik Müller-Horn, Rekha Meena, Camille Audra, Jorge Furuya, and Christoph Zobl for Volvo Car Corporation, is a battery electric subcompact crossover SUV and one of the fastest electric cars at its price point.
Volvo broke away from its “boxy” image in the 1990s, when curves first started appearing. The EX30 is, then, actually surprisingly square-edged, but it’s also futuristic.
The EX30 has real presence, with those cool headlights and the very sleek styling. The split brake lights are handsome, and while it’s a very new style for Volvo, there are enough little touches that you can tell it slots into the rest of the lineup.
Next for the “best of 2025,” the Audi Q5 SB, designed by Juan Carlos Huerta Martinez, and David Caffrey, at Audi AG., is a sleek, coupe-inspired luxury SUV featuring a sloping roofline, quattro all-wheel drive, and advanced mild-hybrid technology.
The cherubic Q5 is entering its edgy teenage years with its toned, sporty looks, less boxy, more aerodynamic. With a dramatic roofline, bold contours and a coupe-like silhouette, this sporty SUV comfortably seats five. It’s refined style and space without compromise.
The other “Best of the Best” is the Audi A5 Avant by designers Jakob Hirzel, Katharina Pyrek, Aleyna Aydin, Holger Mathes, and Luisa Werther, which impresses with its powerful volume and proportions, clean design, versatility, and established virtues: it offers plenty of space and a visually strong presence, partly due to the sloping D-pillars that sit purposefully on the massive rear quattro blisters.
Lastly is the Mole Urbana, now underway at the Borgaretto plant near Turin—patiently brought to life by Umberto Palermo and UP-Design OR.A. for MU Fabriano srl. for over several years—is the next evolution in Europe’s sustainable-mobility landscape.
Palermo’s electric Mole Urbana and its construction philosophy is toward a new, accessible dimension of personal mobility.
Two wheelbase options and multiple configurations, including versions designed for commercial use, turn these retro-inspired vehicles into a lively and appealing proposal.
Palermo’s frame and bodywork follow a clear, almost schematic approach, yet the final “attire” shows remarkable care: wood, metal and textiles shape the interior atmosphere.
Its forms and stylistic cues are borrowed from the world of classic off-roaders, as do the large wheels and raised stance, conceived to express solidity and robustness within a compact footprint of just 3.75 metres in length and 1.45 in height.
