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Born to drive: Lapo Elkann, Fiat heir and founder of Garage Italia Customs

Climb on board with yacht owner Lapo Elkann. The heir to the Fiat fortune lives fast and sails even faster – thanks to Lap-1_, his 40 knot Baglietto , customised by his own Garage Italia Customs. Stewart Campbell tracks him down in Milan to talk yachts, cars and why his wild days are definitely behind him..._

Yesterday Dubai, today Milan, tomorrow Miami: Lapo Elkann is tired. I catch him between hemispheres, jet-lagged and running on espresso. Even his attire is muted this frigid Milanese morning: white pin-stripe shirt and chinos (not a cherry red brogue in sight). At least the America leg of his never-ending world tour is about play and not work. In Florida, he’ll hook up with his latest fascination, all 13.8 metres, 1,600hp and 40 knots of it. Lap-1 , the camoed-up Baglietto launched into Elkann’s ownership last year, seems the perfect floating representation of its owner, and he the personification of it. “It’s fast, lean and mean,” he says. “Unique, distinctive from everything else.” That’s the popular image of Elkann, anyway, the playboy prince turned entrepreneur, as famous for his scrapes with the press as his Agnelli heritage.

The 38-year-old says he needs this time on board. “It’s like plugging in. I would say that the place I relax most on planet Earth is in a boat. First of all, I am moving but in an environment I don’t control, in an environment that can do anything it wants, and I am not the ruler.”

That’s a big change from his day to day. The reason for all this travel is two-fold: to promote Garage Italia Customs, his newly launched company that he aims to make the first word in after-market personalisation, and Italia Independent Group, his more established eyewear, media and lifestyle company set up in 2007.

His control of both is absolute; neither is the kind of cushy sinecure sometimes reserved for the scions of great houses. Italia Independent was – is – a gamble, started without his family’s money in a crowded market. Garage Italia Customs feels more like the passion project. He had a job for life at Fiat, the company he majority owns with his brother John and sister Ginevra, and achieved plenty during his four years there, not least the launch of the market-shifting Fiat 500, but staying at the family firm would have betrayed the very simple philosophy inked dermis-deep on his left forearm - independent.

This grandson of Gianni Agnelli, the former president of Fiat and unofficial “king of Italy”, couldn’t quit making things, though. In his case, eyeglasses. It’s what those Agnellis do. “I like industry and I like producing. Very much. I like being with workers and understanding what they do and how they do it. I like to work with design teams and I like to work with engineers.” The rest of it – the zeal, the nous – he says he owes to no one but himself. “It’s very natural in me. It’s not something that comes from my grandfather, my father, not at all. Zero. I created Italia Independent with no cash and today it’s a listed company. I could have asked for $100 million and done a huge campaign. But I didn’t. I like it the hard way.”

He gets steely when he says it, unflinching. I believe him. “I want to create my own empire,” he adds, just to be clear. He doesn’t deny his privilege – the legend grandfather, the countess mother, Margherita Agnelli de Pahlen, and prominent intellectual father, Alain Elkann, but sees his position as a responsibility. “It’s not free of charge. It’s great to build, it’s great to do, but the real key to the future for he who has means is generosity. Generosity is not the key to my future, it’s the key to our future.”

It’s not a side of Elkann celebrated by the European tabloids, for whom he is something of a fetish. His office houses four obscure golden statues, which I discover later are Golden Tapirs, awarded by satirical news show Striscia la Notizia to the celebrity who has caused the most embarrassing headlines in that particular year. Like many gilded sons, there was the almost inevitable overdose, the dash to hospital and the life and death recovery. That was a long time ago – 2005 – but the legacy of those wild days is a troop of paps forever framing him in their lenses.

He’s got a sense of humour about it all – the tapirs take pride of place in the office – but the smile quickly fades when it’s time to talk business. He turns flinty and admits to being ferociously self-critical. “I can seem very loose and cool but I am very hard on myself and whichever product comes out, and also on the people who work for me. I don’t tolerate mediocrity. I don’t tolerate laziness. There is no ‘no’. You need to kick ass 24/7.” He clearly expects a big buy-in from his staff, but empowers them to figure out how they work best – in the middle of the night or after chasing girls, he suggests. “I have zero judgement.”

He’s now got the boat world in his sights. It’s time for a change, he says, revealing that he’s already engaged with a “legendary” Italian boatbuilder about a new product range. Mum’s the word, despite my prodding. He’s also working with Baglietto on new 43 and 53 metre models. “I see a lot of boats around the world but I see a lot of big pieces of junk. Big doesn’t mean nice, and millions and millions of dollars doesn’t equal taste. The sad part is you see a lot of rich people with bad taste – a lot of the boats are extremely tacky and cheesy. I think the boat industry, the builders and designers, need to wake up and bring freshness and novelty,” he says. And if they won’t do it, he will. “There is an opportunity to do far more than is being done now. The yards need to be less lazy in what they show to you. It cannot be that I pay 15, 20, 25, 50 million euros and you propose me four options. When I pay so much, I don’t accept so little. It’s disrespectful, unprofessional and it’s not luxury. Luxury is the opportunity, the possibility, to go to any length.”

Lap-1 is the first boat he’s built and owned himself. He and his brother inherited Agnelli’s mythic Germán Frers -designed Stealth , so the boating background is solid. His love of the water can be traced even further back – to his childhood growing up in Brazil with his mother, following his parents’ divorce. He learnt to sail in Optimists off Brazil’s famous beaches, and went out with Agnelli as much as he could. His brother, John, was then old enough to be working at the family firm but young Lapo got to just enjoy being with his grandfather on the water. “I was probably the one who was more in love with doing those type of activities with him,” Elkann recalls. “We had similar traits. It was fun.” He never really needed to own a boat until his late 30s as one was always available to him. He’s sailed with Giovanni Soldini on Maserati , with Ken Read on Stealth in the Fastnet, as well as with the Luna Rossa and Team Oracle America’s Cup teams. “Sea people are far more interesting than those from other industries because they have seen the world, they have travelled. And, generally speaking, they are curious people.”

He can’t quite bring himself to say boats were his first love. Cars sit on that pedestal, and he remembers that desire always being there. “I wanted to play with them, I wanted the keys to them.” Brazil was notable, too, as the place of his first car crash, aged six. “I wasn’t known to be a very disciplined young boy,” he admits, grinning. He was in the mountains one day, sitting in the passenger seat, when he decided to see what would happen if he dropped the handbrake. The inevitable happened – into a tree. “I destroyed that Panda four by four.” The experience didn’t temper the car lust but it grew into a more general love of motion, and “motion is absolutely my favourite industry”. He’s frenetic in his attentions; an absolute focus on one project briefly, before moving on. “I used to ask Enzo Ferrari what his favourite car was, and he always said ‘the next one’. I am the same. Once I build something, I am already thinking about the next one. I fall in love for a very short amount of time.”

The Next Big Thing for Elkann is also very big news for yachting – his first true superyacht, an explorer. It will satisfy a lifetime’s longing. “My endless dream was always to be an adventurer, more so than an entrepreneur. Like Cousteau, you know?” The concept drawings are done – no, he won’t let me see them – and now he needs to settle on a final size, somewhere between 40 and 50 metres. Anything bigger and you lose the connection to the sea, says Elkann. “You think about these 100 metre boats, or big Lürssens of nearly 200 metres. Would I work on a boat like that? Absolutely. Would I want one? No, never, because I like to feel the sea. And for me the sea is not tinted windows and air-conditioning.”

It will be built, like Lap-1 , at Baglietto, to designs by Elkann and his collaborator and friend Federico Santa Maria, formerly of Wally . Nowhere will be off-limits to the yacht. “ Lap-1 I will keep in the Mediterranean, and Lap-2 will be all over the world. I don’t want to give limitations.” In styling terms, think Lap-1 amplified. “It will be extremely military, extremely tough; extremely elegant, lean and very mean. But also very cosy on the inside. It’s going to be influenced by the sailing world, because I love sailing boats, too.”

Why not have both, like his grandfather? “I need to make far more money to reach that objective. One day it will be reached. I have patience.” None of his boats will carry the flag of some pinprick territory, but that of Italy. Despite a peripatetic upbringing – born in New York, childhood in Brazil, formative schooling in Paris and London and a first job as Henry Kissinger’s personal assistant back in New York – he is passionately green, white and red. “I pay my taxes and I want my Italian flag. I refuse to have a Cayman or Isle of Man flag,” he says. “I have cruised all over the world to go and see who were the best boatbuilders. And, no matter what, my choice, even if it’s going to be a bit more expensive, is Italy.”

What a bigger yacht won’t offer is the same 40 knot thrills as Lap-1 , but perhaps it’s time Lapo Elkann nudged the throttle back. His is a 100mph life – just living it vicariously for a couple of hours adds a wrinkle. But I’m not sure he knows any other way. “I don’t tolerate boredom. I’m not a great guy on holidays. It’s why I like boats and not houses. In a boat, if you get bored, you move it.”

He spent summer 2015 avoiding boredom at high speed all over the western Med, taking Lap-1 from Italy, to Spain and the South of France. The morning we meet, the 13.8 metre is on its break, strapped to a ship nearing Miami, site of our photoshoot. Back in Milan, Elkann is static, too, and he’s getting itchy. He’s only been back in town a day but it’s already time to move. He’s dreaming of Florida and getting back on board. What’s his first action when taking the helm? As if you had to ask. “I go full throttle. Always full throttle.”

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How Lapo Elkann Rebounded from Rock Bottom to Build His Own Business Empire

Lapo elkann’s life on land, sea, and air.

Lapo Elkann is named for the 12th-century Italian poet Lapo Gianni, who was immortalized in a verse by Dante as one who could “talk about love forever.” Lapo Elkann, in fact, is all about love. Soon after we meet, he pulls me in close for a kiss on both cheeks, and I can feel the stubble on his face and smell the Marlboros on his breath. “Lapo loves to be loved,” says Countess Marina Cicogna, who has known him since he was five. “He loves to be recognized. He would drive around in his cars with their Prince of Wales prints and wave to the people on Via Monte Napoleone.” After all, he is the youngest grandson of Gianni Agnelli—the iconic industrialist who once ruled Italy with his myriad businesses and la dolce vita lifestyle.

I am relieved that Lapo is kissing, and not cursing, me. Because in the February 2006 issue of this magazine, I wrote a story about his spectacular, near-death drug overdose in 2005, which left him in a three-day coma, and which Lapo asked me not to dwell upon here. Two years later, I wrote a V.F. story about his mother, Margherita Agnelli de Pahlen, and her dogged fight against her father’s longtime advisers, and her own family, to receive what she believed was her rightful inheritance from her father’s estate.

But Lapo has learned not to focus on the past. “I try to think about the constructive path,” he says. And it is fitting that his path has led him to create automobile, eyewear, and lifestyle businesses that are all about transformation and rebirth.

One afternoon in Milan, Lapo takes me for a spin in a Ferrari California T V-8, every inch of which Lapo has customized, from its seats of leather and baby-soft Japanese denim to its screaming Scottish-blue exterior. He has just left the headquarters of his company, Garage Italia Customs, where he and his team transform Ferraris and other cars into kaleidoscopes of color, detail, and design, inspired by anything from the pinstripes of a customer’s favorite bespoke suit to the lacquer hues of a woman’s nail polish. Now he wants to show me how the car (base price: $202,000) performs, which it does admirably, commanding attention from bystanders. “ Ciao, Lapo, come va ?” all of Milan seems to be asking as we streak down its streets. A riot of pure Italian passion and all-American ambition packed into a muscular frame with heavily tattooed arms, Lapo says, “There is nothing I like more than driving cars, working on cars, creating cars.”

He’s dressed in a double-breasted blue Luca Rubinacci suit, velvety tailor-made slippers, and custom shirt, its cuffs personalized with his nickname: LAPS. Turning onto a side street, he hits the gas in a car that can accelerate from zero to 60 in less than four seconds. My head jolts back against the headrest as he begins to recount his extraordinary story: how he, Lapo Edovard Elkann, 38, re-invented himself as a global entrepreneur.

Video: Inside Lapo Elkann’s Life of Luxury

He didn’t have to go back to work after his overdose. Because for most of his life Lapo had been a prince forever looking up to, and emulating, his grandfather. At one point worth an estimated $3.1 billion, Gianni Agnelli’s empire included a controlling interest in Fiat (which then controlled Ferrari, Maserati, Lancia, and Alfa Romeo), Juventus (the Turin-based soccer team), the Château Margaux vineyards, Italian department stores, and La Stampa , Turin’s daily newspaper. Linked romantically to Jackie Kennedy and Rita Hayworth, Agnelli was the paradigm of the playboy tycoon. Lapo lived in Agnelli’s Park Avenue apartment in New York in 2001, when he worked as personal assistant to Henry Kissinger. “New York was good for him,” says the designer Diane von Furstenberg, who has known Lapo since he was seven, when she lived with his father, the dashing French-Italian novelist and TV personality Alain Elkann, in the 1980s. “Like a lot of creative people, it was difficult for Lapo to find the way he would use his creativity and, to a certain degree, his madness. And he found his way.”

This November, he will unveil the headquarters for his latest company: the iconic Agip mega gas-station-and-garage in Milan. A masterpiece of midcentury design when constructed in the early 50s, the building languished as a mechanics’ shop in the mid-1980s and then stood decaying for years. Now Lapo and his team are radically refurbishing it, complete with customization workshops, a restaurant, showrooms for Garage Italia’s cars, offices, and more.

To tell me that story, Lapo takes me to his residence atop a building in the center of Milan. Like everything else in his life, his home has been transformed. He guides me through his apartment, a swirling cornucopia of art and design and, everywhere, clothes. Only one thing seems to be missing: his current girlfriend, the gorgeous Shermine Shahrivar, Miss Europe 2005.

Lapo’s clothes, including some 400 suits, many of which are available in a made-to-measure collaboration between Gucci and Lapo called Lapo’s Wardrobe, have earned him a spot in *Vanity Fair’*s Best-Dressed List Hall of Fame. But the clothes are not merely the plumage of a playboy; they’re the armor of a Renaissance businessman, whose companies include an international fashion brand, Italia Independent, with an advertising arm, Independent Ideas; a film-distribution-and-production firm, Good Films, which Lapo has a major stake in with his sister, Ginevra Elkann Gaetani, 36; and Garage Italia Customs, which customizes “cars, planes, boats, bikes, and toys for boats.”

We have lunch in his dining room beneath a huge Warhol-and-Basquiat painting titled Eat Your Vegetables . Lapo eats, and smokes, and inhales a stream of espresso, while he talks, in a guttural, staccato voice tarred by nicotine. After his overdose, he was sent off to rehab in Arizona and then moved back to New York, where he battled his addiction, which he calls “the biggest challenge I’ve had in my life,” but he emerged creatively more alive.

HEIRS ’N’ PARENTS Left, Elkann with his grandfather Gianni Agnelli in Venice, 2001; Right, by Elkann (in pink shirt) with Agnelli and family near Turin, Italy, 1986.

‘We would go to Canal Street, and he would grab things—cheap watches, a dollar hat, sunglasses—and he would change it into something his own,” recalls the photographer Wayne Maser. “He has a talent that’s hard to articulate, even at that time when he had no idea what he would eventually do.”

At 28, working as the director of worldwide brand promotion of Fiat, he became the flamboyant public face of the otherwise private Agnelli family. Determined to make Fiat hip for his generation, he aggressively promoted the Grande Punto, the second iteration of the company’s first supermini car, which contributed to his 2005 collapse.

He enlisted a Manhattan advertising agency to help him on the 2007 relaunch of another car, the Fiat 500, or the Cinquecento—the affordable snub-nosed coupe that became the rage of Italy in 1957. When only Lapo, and not his team, was invited to an event to be recognized for the car’s success, he resigned from “my family business” (though he remained a major shareholder of the Agnelli family investment company, which owns a controlling stake in Fiat Chrysler Automobiles), and tattooed a one-word mantra along the length of his left forearm: INDEPENDENT.

“People would laugh if I say I started from ground zero, but the reality is I started my companies from scratch,” he says. “My mind-set today and in those days was ‘Think like a self-made man. Even though you come from a family who has a humongous heritage, has everything, you need to think like someone who is poor. Because if you think like someone who is rich, you’re fucked.’ ”

Public Spectacles

He eventually settled on sunglasses as his first product, his debut model inspired by a photograph he had of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis wearing her signature sunglasses in a Fiat 500 belonging to his grandfather.

“Frankly, I didn’t think there was so much to talk about with sunglasses,” remembers the stylist Sciascia Gambaccini, who watched Lapo sift through several ideas for his first product. “I thought there were enough sunglasses in the world.” And Lapo knew that sunglasses-crazy Italy was eager to watch him fall on his face. “In the U.S., success is cherished and respected,” he says. “In Europe, success is envied.”

Lapo called his new company Italia Independent. He founded it with two longtime friends and associates, the attorney Andrea Tessitore and Lapo’s former Fiat colleague Giovanni Accongiagioco, and helped finance it with 50,000 euros of his own money. “I wanted to see what I was capable of doing without my family, without my family business, without my family money,” he says.

For Lapo, entering the eyewear industry was like a lamb staring into the jaws of a lion. The industry leader is the Milan-based Luxottica Group, one of the world’s largest producers of eyewear. The company’s founder and chairman, Leonardo Del Vecchio, 81, is worth $16 billion, according to Forbes , and is known as the second-richest man in Italy. His company owns Ray-Ban, Oakley, Persol, Sunglass Hut, and LensCrafters.

How to stand out? Lapo thought back to his grandfather’s all-black racing yacht, Stealth . “Carbon fiber,” he says, citing the advantages of the material, which include lightness and incredible strength. “Nobody had ever done carbon-fiber eyewear,” says Lapo, whose sunglass frames would be constructed of 47 layers of carbon-fiber filament, making them as sturdy and sleek as his grandfather’s sailboat. But what initially set the sunglasses apart was the price: 1,007 euros (approximately $1,400).

In early 2007, Lapo dramatically returned home. Wearing his grandfather’s cream-colored cashmere double-breasted blazer with Brazilian camouflage trousers, he celebrated the launching of his new company at a dinner for 150 during the Pitti Uomo fashion fair, in Florence.

“To the eyes of the world [the price] was a joke, but in reality it is probably the best thing I’ve ever done,” Lapo says. “Because if I wanted to position my brand high, and I had to invest in advertising, I would’ve had to have paid millions. By doing these glasses and positioning them at that price, advertising was free of charge . . . We sold them all.”

Now Italia Independent is an international entity, listed on Milan’s secondary stock exchange. With 180 employees worldwide, the company reported 2015 revenues of $44.4 million, up 20.4 percent from the previous year. It has 15 flagship stores worldwide, selling more than 1,000 different styles of sunglasses and other items, and offers products in partnership with companies including Adidas Originals and Hublot. Among a host of celebrity endorsers, fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld has made Lapo’s Italia Independent sunglasses part of his distinctive wardrobe and has also designed a sunglasses collection for the company.

Early the next morning, Lapo sends me to the Milan Design and Style Center of Garage Italia Customs, to meet his company’s artistic director, Carlo Ludovico Borromeo, the 32-year-old scion of the Borromeo dynasty, which dates back to the 14th century. So rich and powerful are the Borromeos that they once governed their own state within Northern Italy and still have their own islands, one in Lago Maggiori and another off Taormina. Lapo came to know Carlo when his brother, John, head of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, married Carlo’s sister Lavinia, in what was called the wedding of the decade in 2004. But Carlo didn’t realize the force of his personality until Lapo invited him to a business meeting in his home near Turin one day in 2010.

“I was dressed properly,” says Carlo of his arrival at Villar Perosa, the grand Agnelli family estate. He was greeted by Lapo’s housekeeper, Armando, and led downstairs, where he heard Lapo, in his guttural roar, shout, “Hey, I’m in the sauna! Come in!”

“So I got undressed,” Carlo recalls, and headed naked into the heat. “I don’t really like saunas, and he kept me in that sauna for 45 minutes, talking about projects, smoking cigarettes, talking on the phone. Everything in the sauna. I could die; my [blood] pressure! I was about to have a heart attack. But that’s where we started, and the next day I was at Ferrari with him.”

Lapo was leading Ferrari’s Tailor-Made program, which is still in operation and allows buyers to customize their Ferraris “down to the tiniest detail,” according to Ferrari promotional materials. From there, he began working on a new accessory, a refrigerator commissioned by the German-based appliance giant Smeg. Smeg sought a fridge reimagined, and Lapo turned to one of his favorite fabrics: he covered the little fridge completely in denim.

A year later, he launched the Smeg 500, a refrigerator hidden inside the hood of a partial Fiat 500 shell, which dazzled shoppers as they gaped at it in shops like Colette, on Paris’s Rue Saint-Honoré. From there, it was a natural leap into customizing the commodity closest to Lapo’s heart: cars .

Lapo is currently franchising the Garage Italia Customs concept in Miami, Dubai, and Asia. Garage Italia Customs has customized 165 cars and five private planes, including a Gulfstream G650, a Gulfstream IV, a Bombardier Learjet 31, and a Learjet 45. The company has done collaborations with Mazda, Ducati, Smart cars, and BMW, customizing one of its new models to celebrate BMW’s 50 years in Italy. Private-equity billionaire Ron Burkle paid $1.12 million for one of Lapo’s camouflage Ferraris at last summer’s AmFAR auction in Cannes, and two Fiat 500 electric cars, customized by Lapo’s company, were auctioned off at this year’s Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation charity event in St. Tropez.

A rendering of Elkann’s new headquarters, in Milan.

Garage Sale

Almost as challenging as creating the product was finding a headquarters, a symbol, that would reflect Lapo’s enormous pride in his country and his vision for the future. The answer, it turned out, was something that Lapo had literally driven past for the last 20 years of his life.

“The Temple of the Automobile,” designed by the great modern Italian architect Mario Bacciocchi, reflected the hopes and dreams of an Italy on the move, an exuberant country being rebuilt after the war with American money from the Marshall Plan. Although the building was primarily meant to be a gas station, it became an automobile club, a futuristic, curvaceous, boomerang-shaped beacon for drivers in Milan. But by the mid-1980s it was a mechanics’ shop, and then for more than 10 years it sat empty, a victim of Italy’s economic stagnation, a once shining symbol of the country’s hopes that stood vacant and vandalized.

“I always asked myself, ‘Why is it kept so poorly?’ ” Lapo says of the building. “And it pissed me off, actually. I always said, ‘One day, I need to do something . . . to restore dignity, pride, and honor to this building, which is a landmark in Milan.” He got his chance in early 2015, when the building was put up for sale in a public auction run by the city of Milan.

Lapo and his team bid against companies from Italy and abroad. Naturally, Lapo won, and, naturally, he is pushing the renovation to the limit. The building, which will be restored under the direction of noted Italian architect Michele de Lucchi, will become the global headquarters of Garage Italia Customs when it reopens this November. It will also once again become the Temple of the Automobile, featuring workshops and showrooms of Lapo’s company’s customized vehicles, and a restaurant run by renowned chef Carlo Cracco.

One afternoon, Lapo takes me on a tour of the building, which was then still a wreck, its majestic windows broken, its futuristic walls covered in graffiti, its garage bays grimy with dirt and dust, the air reeking of neglect.

“Another shell,” I say.

“That’s the beauty,” he says.

“Because it’s beautiful to see things that you bring back.”

Special Correspondent

Royal watch.

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Lapo Elkann

In the early 1950s, ENI chairman Enrico Mattei commissioned architect Mario Bacciocchi to design an Agip service station that would embody the incredible wave of dynamism sweeping Italy at the time. Sixty years later, that same station has been given a new lease of life by Lapo Elkann who called in another architect, Michele De Lucchi, to restore it after years of neglect.

Two very different eras but also two entrepreneurial stories that share the same vision of turning Italy into a truly great country. Thanks to Elkann’s efforts, Garage Italia once again brings together the very best of Made in Italy under the same roof. The building’s exterior retains the aerodynamic sleekness inspired by the glorious Streamline Moderne style movement of the first half of the 20th century.

Depending on the angle it is viewed from, the shape of the former service station seems to mimic the deck of ship, the wings of an aeroplane or the flowing lines of a sports car. Earth, sky and sea are recurring themes and actively inspired the vision behind Elkann’s project. The result is that past is in constant, lively dialogue with the present in Garage Italia. “It’s not about rhetoric and it’s not a nostalgia trip either,” he says emphatically. “Garage Italia celebrates the best our nation has to offer using a language that references the Dolce Vita concept.” In other words, it is not a museum but an actual workshop: a laboratory of ideas in which creative talent pays a central role.

The term “Garage” was a very deliberate choice. The high tech likes of Apple, Amazon and Google also started out  as dreams of young men working from their garages.

Then, of course, there is the garage band phenomenon that produced some of the best of modern rock music. But Lapo Elkann personally is following a very different tune. “My garage is designed to be the new home of Italian creativity. A place lit up by the desire to coin an entirely new style that may look to the past but mostly aims to create a better present and future,” he declares.

Hence the decision to call this new movement Dolce Vita 4.0.  An intermingling of past and future, tradition and innovation – the core values and keys to the success of the great Made in Italy brands of the likes of  Kartell, Cassina, Poltrona Frau, Brembo, Pirelli, Uno Più, Viabizzuno,  Richard Ginori and Riva, now flanking Garage Italia in its endeavours.  To get an idea of the true breath of Lapo Elkann’s vision, just take a stroll around the spaces themselves.

Terms such as “personalisation” and “tailor-made” take on new meanings and are energised by cross-contamination between seemingly unconnected worlds. Nine Ferrari Daytona and two Ferrari 599 seats have been turned into actual armchairs, for instance, while the legendary 298 De Lucchi director’s chair for Cassina has been personalised with exclusive motorsport-inspired graphics designed by Elkann and the Garage Italia creative team. But that is far from the end of the story. The two-tone leather Frau sofa in the restaurant area, where the menu is in the capable hands of chef Carlo Cracco, is inspired by a Ferrari that once belonged to Gianni Agnelli. The car theme continues with the bodyshell of a Ferrari 250 GTO which has been kitted out as a cocktail station.

The Riva Privé space also melds the automotive and maritime worlds as its styling, materials, décor and colours all clearly hark back to the Aquarama, one of the great iconic models produced by the Bergamo yard which is now part of the Ferretti Group.

“With Garage Italia, we set ourselves the goal of creating and turning into reality the personalisation dreams and desires of a business to business and business to consumer client base. We also work in the industrial design sector,” explains Elkann. Sky, land and sea set the coordinates and scope of Garage Italia’s work.

But that is no coincidence.“hey were the central elements in an advertising campaign my great-great-grandfather (Fiat founder Giovanni Agnelli Senior, ed.’s note) commissioned for Fiat and which, in my own small way, I wanted to pick up on in getting this project off the ground,” continues Elkann, adding: “This is a style centre, not a fashion centre. Equally I don’t look on myself as a fashion entrepreneur but as one that works with style.”  We might also add that Elkann is an exporter of creativity which brings us neatly to his work with Hublot and Italia Independent, a partnership that has produced timepiece collections that shine a bright light on his talent for innovation finding unusual, cutting-edge materials and putting them to new uses. O ne example is Texalium which was used to produce a version of Hublot’s iconic Big Bang watch.

At the other end of the spectrum is the 2018 Classic Fusion Chronograph Italia Independent, collection spanning three very elegant limited edition watch models featuring 1960s and 70s fabrics on their dials which Elkann himself selected from the archives of the celebrated Italian tailor Rubinacci.

But what about the maritime world? “There is still a lot of work to be done there,” says the entrepreneur. “Very few have had the courage to instigate change in the sector. But Luca Bassani is one. I have great respect and admiration for what he has managed to achieve in both the sailing and motor arenas.”

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TYD38: the new issue is on the stage

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Lapo Elkann in vacanza a Saint Tropez (con lo yacht camouflage)

Lapo Elkann è in vacanza a Saint Tropez con il suo nuovo yacht «camouflage». L’imbarcazione è stata varata lo scorso luglio e porta la firma del designer Francesco Paszkowski. Il rampollo di casa Agnelli lo ha chiamato Lap-1: lo yacht, costruito ai cantieri Baglietto di La Spezia, misura 13,8 metri (Olycom)

Lapo Elkann sullo yacht a Saint-Tropez. Estroso non solo il design dello yacht, ma anche il costume scelto da Lapo (Olycom)

L’imbarcazione lascia il porto di Saint Tropez (Olycom)

Il varo dello yacht. Il modello è Mv13 e può navigare a 37 nodi, circa 80 km l’ora, mentre predilige una velocità di crociera a 32 nodi (Twitter)

La verniciatura in stile militare, prediletto da Elkann, è personalizzata (Twitter)

Non è la prima volta che Lapo Elkann fa personalizzare qualcosa. Nel 2012 fece notizia comparendo a Milano a bordo di una Ferrari mimetica

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Lapo of luxury

*Scion of the most celebrated and stylish of Italian dynasties, Lapo Elkann could have spent his days enjoying the fame and fortune bequeathed him by his grandfather, the legendary Fiat industrialist Gianni Agnelli. But rather than put his well-heeled feet up - and despite personal setbacks in 2005 - the entrepreneur is the driving force behind a series of high-end brand collaborations, including steering a makeover of the jewel in his family's crown. *

Lapo Elkann arrives outside London's Shoreditch House in his personalised Abarth Fiat 500. Personalisation is his calling card. Elkann is a consultant to Ferrari, on a mission to help the company's exceptionally well-heeled clientele specify their new car in ways that would almost certainly never have occurred to them. "Luxury today has to be open to new materials and new elements. Leather is great but it's not the only material you can use on a car interior," he says. "There is carbon fibre, cashmere, titanium..."

This new service is called Ferrari Tailor-Made, and it's available in special worldwide ateliers, including one in an annexe of London's Berkeley hotel. Elkann, 34, will be working closely with his friend Flavio Manzoni, Ferrari's design director, on tailoring the cars, memorabilia and other sympathetic extensions to the Ferrari brand.

It comes hot on the heels of a deal he did with Gucci's Frida Giannini for a special edition of the Fiat 500, the sort of high-octane brand collusion that doesn't happen every day, and certainly would have been beyond Fiat a few years ago. It helps that all of this is deep in his DNA: Lapo Elkann is the grandson of legendary Italian automotive tycoon and high-roller Gianni Agnelli.

So it's worth checking out his wheels. Elkann owns Maseratis and Ferraris, which he keeps elsewhere in the world, preferring to have more modest modes of transport at his newly purchased Notting Hill mews apartment. Hence the little Fiat, though with its matt-green paintwork - Italian military green - and black alloys, this particular 500 isn't exactly flying under the radar. Inside, its seats are trimmed in a material you will never have seen on a car before: denim. Elkann loves denim. "It makes things simple," he says. It's strange to sit in a car interior that's been trimmed in denim, despite the fabric being so familiar. Stranger still is the realisation that it works.

Though he lived and studied in London when he was younger, Elkann is still acclimatising to life in the latest city he calls home. "London is like a girlfriend I loved, then really fell out with," he says. "But now I've fallen in love with her again. London is the financial capital of Europe, a great platform to America and Asia. I love the fact that in British culture you can be whoever you want and people don't even look at you. I don't feel that in Paris or Milan." He's staying in a hotel while his new place is being worked on, and he tells me he had to hail a cab so he could follow it to Shoreditch House.

I sit beside him while we negotiate the area's labyrinthine one-way streets to find a parking space. His driving style is stereotypical Italian flamboyance, and his quick-wittedness sees us teeter expertly on the brink of chaos without actually tumbling into it. A Marlboro Red clamped to his bottom lip, arm resting nonchalantly on the leather-rimmed wheel, Elkann expresses admiration for the area's post-industrial warehouse chic. Another 20 observations arrive in about as many seconds. The accent is a thick Italian soup, but his English is perfect.

Marlboro Reds are his only vice these days. He was never much of a drinker, he says, and he doesn't touch drugs any more (this subject will crop up again, inevitably). He says he's even trying to keep the espressos to a minimum (he used to drink eight or more a day, and he's not a man who needs that sort of caffeine kick).

Lunch is in the top-floor restaurant, overlooking a rooftop pool. The sun is glinting off the water. Our waiters, it turns out, are Italian. Elkann doesn't rival David Beckham in the tattoo stakes, but he's not far off it. One on his forearm proclaims his devotion to Juventus and prompts our waiter to start an animated conversation about the state of Italian football. Then the chef appears, embraces him like a long-lost brother, and the conversation bubbles away furiously.

Our fellow diners have no idea who Elkann is, unless they happen to be Italian too. Elkann likes London because he can generally go about his business here unmolested. But in Italy it's a very different story: he's a household name there. Yet he gives the waiter his personal e-mail address and tells him to get in touch if he wants tickets for a Juventus game.

It's a sign of Elkann's genuineness. Being genuine is something that matters greatly to him, especially after his spectacular fall from grace in 2005. He says that many of his so-called friends deserted him after he suffered a drug overdose so severe he lapsed into a coma, and he's learned to spot the vampires. That dark night he disappeared into such an unhinged chemical odyssey that he ended up in a Turin apartment rented by a transsexual prostitute. "I didn't see it coming. I knew I was unhappy, and I knew I was on the wrong path, but I was also too far along the path to see it," he says.

Elkann always had a "work hard, play hard" ethos. Now he's all about work, and shuttles endlessly between Milan, New York and London. In January 2007, he set up Italia Independent, a fashion and design company, and his umbrella firm, LA Holding, now encompasses several separate businesses. What Elkann lacks in conventional management practice, he makes up for in sheer creativity and energy. "I'm a freestyle creative entrepreneur," he says. "Not a businessman. I like to create ventures in which creativity stands at the centre."

There's a brief pause. Elkann's pauses rarely last long. "My goal in life is to make things better and nicer. I'm never satisfied. I think you can always do more, which is both my strength and weakness in life. But it's what makes me go forwards fast, not slowly. You have to apply your mind in different fields, to create bridges between areas that never normally talk to each other. "I no longer have that issue of ego, that need to be comforted or validated by people when they say, 'You look good,' or

'You are successful.' I no longer care. I stopped caring a long time ago."

Lapo Elkann is one of the highest-profile members of one of the world's most celebrated dynasties. Imagine having Giovanni "Gianni" Agnelli as your grandfather. While the extended Agnelli clan numbers around 200, his grandchildren (by daughter Margherita) have now been thrust firmly to the forefront of global business, high society and media scrutiny. Elkann and his two siblings are the majority shareholders in Exor, the Fiat Group's parent company.

The Italian press obsesses over the Agnellis like the British media does the Royal Family, but comparisons with the Kennedy dynasty are probably more apt, their travails similar.

Elkann's sister Ginevra is a successful filmmaker who married an Italian nobleman in April 2009, sealing a connection between two powerful Italian families. His older brother, John, is president of both Exor and the Fiat Group, the automotive firm founded by his great-great-grandfather, Giovanni Agnelli Snr, in 1899 and brought to colossal industrial supremacy by his grandfather Gianni during the 20th century. And then there is Lapo, who was director of brand promotion in the group (which includes Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Lancia, Ferrari and Maserati) until his problems in 2005, and was instrumental in nursing back to health the all-conquering Fiat 500 at a time when the organisation's car business was seriously ailing. "I was there for three years, but they were the hardest ones. Not to give myself all the credit, but it's the truth. It was a complicated time. The Cinquecento was an engine of motivation at Fiat. It refurbished the image of the entire company. It's a symbol for the company, but it's more than that. It's a global Italian symbol, as Mini is a global British symbol and the Beetle is a global German symbol."

Elkann somehow also managed to rehabilitate the beleaguered Fiat image, and created some genuinely effective brand extensions, by dusting off and bringing back the classic Fiat logo.

He understands strategy, graphic design, materials, communication and, most importantly, tone. They are attributes shared by depressingly few in the global car business.

A senior Fiat source told me when it came to John and Lapo, it was as if Gianni's spirit had been split in two: John inherited his cool business vision, while Lapo got the creative dynamism and panache. For a while, it was a description to which neither man would have objected. Lately, however, Elkann has been anxious to demonstrate another, rather more level-headed side. It's an ongoing project, and he remains a much-discussed figure in Italy, but his business empire continues to expand rapidly, and although he concedes he owes much to Fiat and the Agnelli legacy, his new businesses are his vision. Being independent of family and political influence is vital to him. "Working for Fiat was tricky, like it is working in any large corporation. Things don't always go the way you want them to and they're usually more complicated than they look from the outside. You should make compromises. And I'm not a good compromiser. I tend to be quite purist, which makes life more difficult in a big company. "Italia Independent is about writing your own story every day, in an independent way, which means not making compromises.

Doing what you believe to be the best for your end customer, in terms of cloth, material, cut and collaborations. We don't impose looks of a certain kind. We want our clients to build up their own personal taste and mix things. We are a brand of contamination, we are not a brand of imposition. We like to see our suits potentially worn with a pair of Nikes or a pair of Church's."

If Italia Independent is the day job, taking control of his own destiny is the bigger picture. But the family back-story is as extraordinary as it is inescapable. Gianni Agnelli was the epitome of the 20th-century tycoon. According to some sources, Fiat at its peak under his command accounted for five per cent of Italy's GDP and employed three per cent of its workforce. Assuming control of Fiat in 1966, at a time when Italy was still pulling itself out of a post-war funk, and would soon be rocked by massive industrial unrest, Agnelli - widely known as "L'Avvocato" (the lawyer) - proved an unusually instinctive operator. He steered Fiat to unprecedented global influence and success.

Agnelli's networking skills were legendary, and he had close personal relationships with the likes of Henry Kissinger (who would later mentor Elkann, "He taught me to always be informed") and some of the world's top bankers and leaders, including Fidel Castro, JFK, Nikita Kruschev, and even the Queen. He didn't just build cars: he was part of the Establishment elite that exerted influence in every area of human activity. Under his reign, the family empire also took control of great Italian totems like Ferrari and he continued his father's passionate interest in Juventus, which the family still owns. (It was said that Agnelli would phone the club's president every day at 6am and say to him, "Tell me everything.") To many in the country, L'Avvocato was the unofficial king of Italy.

And, boy, did he look good while he reigned. In a period that generated so many natural style icons, Gianni Agnelli was one of the greatest. He wore his trademark double-breasted suits with the effortless grace of a Hollywood A lister, and cultivated a deliberately mischievous style. He would wear his wristwatch over his shirt cuff, an affectation that meant he didn't have to waste time pulling the fabric back. Before his 1953 marriage to Donna Marella Caracciolo, Agnelli had numerous high-profile romantic entanglements (including one with film director Federico Fellini's muse, Anita Ekberg).

As with so many great dynasties, though, tragedy came calling. Agnelli's only son, Edoardo, apparently ploughed his own lonely furrow in life, before leaping to his death from a bridge in Turin in 2000. His nephew, Giovanni Alberto Agnelli, was being groomed to take over the business, but died of cancer in 1997, aged just 33. Agnelli himself died six years later.

Elkann wears some of his late grandfather's suits. Indeed, he has inherited so much of Agnelli's innate style that Vanity Fair included him in its best-dressed hall of fame in 2009.

American GQ named him one of the 25 sexiest men in the world in 2010. No less an authority than Tom Ford cited Elkann as the world's "chicest" man. "He's very stylish," he said. "He wears outlandish clothes but he's so confident, of his look, of what he's doing, who he is as a person, and he has a very individual style.

And that's what becomes iconic..."

Elkann shares his grandfather's dress sense, and carries himself with the same air of artful mischief. He has two bespoke BlackBerries, both in the same shade of light blue. On the day we photograph him for GQ, in his Milan office, nestled in the midst of a group of sprawling industrial buildings, he wears jeans and a ripped T-shirt. At the last Geneva motor show, he wore a suit in a colour that matched his PDAs. Elkann gets away with things that no one else would even contemplate, and he knows it. He wears

everything well.

But he also has a great eye. His affiliation with the car business means that his aesthetic is informed by technical materials like carbon fibre and Kevlar, and Italia Independent's range of eyewear - which went on sale in the UK last summer - is well executed and successful. "Italia Independent is for confident people, people who don't need brands to be comfortable. People who like to mix energies, who want to have an independent style, not be labelled by fashion. Style remains in time. Fashion is seasonal and doesn't last. When you have great cuts on suits and shirts and coats they remain timeless. That's the objective. Then you can work on the cloth and the technology you are using. This is why I like to work with the automotive and aerospace sectors because I get to have things that other companies don't. That's one of our potential assets. We need to leverage that more, actually. Fashion is transient and I don't want to be part of that transience."

Despite a peripatetic childhood that saw him move from London to Brazil and then France, Elkann describes himself firmly as a "global Italian". But like many young Italians, Elkann's comments about the country he loves are laced with frustration at its self-sabotaging old habits as Italy struggles with in the debt crisis. "There is bureaucracy and a gerontocracy - in the business part, in the political part, in the religious part. But there are also great realities, very interesting companies, people who have created companies that have a global perspective, even though they have come from small areas in Italy. They are great creators, and they suffer at the hands of Italy's complexities as much as I do.

It makes it very difficult. The Italian market is quite provincial, and if you want to be global you can't act as you might act in Italy."

We've moved onto the roof now. Elkann isn't done with this subject yet. He unpacks another Marlboro Red and reclines on a sunlounger. London's financial heart dominates the skyline in front of us. "Italy is a complicated country to explain, more so now than ever. Though it was not easy before. Yes, there is a charm in the dysfunction but it makes business complicated. You need to understand the level of risk you are taking, and [Italy] is not a country that helps you in that direction. I'm a global Italian individual. I like my country but I don't think like a typical Italian. It's a complex, complicated, difficult country to make things happen in. It has potential that's unexpressed and I want to be part of the expression of it. But it makes being innovative or cutting-edge difficult. Being cutting edge in Italy doesn't mean you're cutting edge in a global market."

The shadow cast by his background is unimaginably big.

Elkann also knows he has a lot to prove to people who expected him to fail, and rejoiced when he did. But he is a ball of positive energy, an intense but entertainingly infectious person to be around. Recreating Elkann, you sense, is likely to be a lifelong project.

There are regular AA meetings, and his conversation is peppered with therapy-speak. But there isn't a trace of self-pity. "My background? I'm tremendously proud of it. I love my grandfather as I love the heritage, the story, the energy. But there is also a big part that has to just be me if I'm going to be healthy. Otherwise I will always be a satellite of someone else, and that will never give you satisfaction. I will only be the grandson of Gianni, and that would be a nightmare. Then you are just a Eurobrat, which is something that many people are happy to be but I'm not able to be. It's why I build my own things and try to create my own world and my own structure, with my partners and the team around me."

The pause is longer this time. "That doesn't mean I don't respect my family.

I wouldn't be here without them. But I'm doing this because I believe in it. If you don't wake up in the morning thinking you have to fight to make things happen you'll go nowhere. There will always be people erecting obstacles, jealous people, always someone saying, 'He's only there because of someone else, because of who he is.' But if you focus on that stuff you go nowhere."

There's another Marlboro Red, but Elkann doesn't stop talking even as he ignites his cigarette. "To be who I am today took some blisters, some scars and a knockout. You can look great on the outside and feel s*** on the inside. Success doesn't fill your heart, soul or mind. You can have all the money in the world but if you don't have spiritual or mental health then you are just a rich idiot. I want to exist in my own space. I want to grow my own companies. That way I create legitimacy. I gain strength, and one day I could come back into the company as me, without having to be a 'system' person. I can be more effective then. "Coming from where I come from you can be spoilt, I understand that, so you have to work hard on your hunger. One of my main goals is to find equilibrium. I tell you, the best thing in the world is not saying yes, it's being able to say no."

He says goodbye and administers a generous bear hug. As always, he has a series of meetings to attend, an inexhaustible supply of ideas to discuss and enact. The matt-green Fiat 500 disappears into the London afternoon, this time without a London cab to show him the way. Lapo Elkann knows exactly where he is going.

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Originally published in the February 2012 issue of British GQ.

Click here to explore Lapo Elkann's stylish Milan office.

Click here to see pictures of Tailor-Made Ferrari cars.

• Owners essentials

Baglietto launches Lap-1

Baglietto launches Lap-1, Lapo Elkann’s first MV13

The Lap1, the first MV13, whose prototype had been presented at the Festival de la Plaisance in Cannes, was launched at the Baglietto shipyard today. The launch ceremony was held in the presence of Lapo Elkann, the Owner of this prestigious yacht, who has always been an enthusiast of the Seagull brand. A new project, Lap2, is currently under study with Baglietto.

The new yacht has been designed and developed by Francesco Paszkowski Design in cooperation with Baglietto, while its customisation was taken care of by Garage Italia Customs, Lapo Elkann’s new enterprise, targeted at international estimators of the ‘Tailor-Made culture’ and involving a team of experts of unparalleled expertise in the fields of wrapping, painting, and upholstery – highly specialised professionals capable of ensuring outstanding, unmatched results.

Customisation on the Lap1 implied a restyling of the exteriors using the Italia Independent digital camouflage, a pattern obtained by hand painting using 5 different shades as well as matt transparent lacquering. On this yacht, the pattern – which can also be found on the roll cage, the gangway, and the anti-slip flooring – has been modified in terms of spot size, distribution, and overlapping. Military-style finishes go hand in hand on this yacht with the unmistakable blue shade typical of Baglietto historical crafts, which characterizes the Alutex instrument panels and, in its navy version, some details and the porthole and drain pipe frames.

The final result flawlessly harmonizes with the MV line concept, which draws inspiration from underwater assault vehicles, paying tribute to the military crafts that made the success history of the Liguria-based nautical brand by reinterpreting some of their peculiar features and shapes in a modern style.

Relying on their common ground and source of inspiration – a modern restyling of the past – with this first project Baglietto and Garage Italia Customs are starting a cooperation that aims to offer clients a fullycustomisable tailor-made product, which deepens its roots in the all-Italian ‘made-to-measure’ sartorial tradition.

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The shared passions of Lapo Elkann and Simon de Pury

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Victoria Woodcock . Photography by Pedro Moura Simão

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Swiss auctioneer Simon de Pury and Italian creative and philanthropist Lapo Elkann share many interests. Both men love art: de Pury as a dealer, adviser and curator; Elkann as a collector. “And football,” smiles Elkann, “although we don’t love the same team. He loves Arsenal. I love Juventus.”

They also share a passion for music: “We follow it as closely as contemporary culture as a whole,” says de Pury, who is known to take to the decks to DJ (sometimes under the name of The Swiss Crocodile), and whose Spotify playlists shift from Harry Styles to Doja Cat to Max Richter. “And we both care about giving back ,” says Elkann. “We’ve had a lot from life, so feel that it’s important to be generous with our time for purposes that are close to our hearts.”

In 2016, Elkann founded the Fondazione Laps (Libera Accademia Progetti Sperimentali) to combat “educational poverty”, focused on children and vulnerable groups. Its pandemic projects in association with the Italian Red Cross , Banco Alimentare (an Italian network of food banks) and other charities raised more than €3mn. More recently, Laps has supported aid initiatives for Ukrainian refugees. An ongoing project is Casa Laps, a programme that started in Madeira to support homeless families, and is planned to extend to other areas in Portugal and Italy.

De Pury , meanwhile, has played a role in raising several billion dollars as a charity auctioneer. “I am constantly asked to swing my gavel by cultural, medical, environmental or philanthropic organisations. I have one nearly every second week,” says de Pury. His presence encourages brisk bidding: in 2017, the live auction at the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation Gala to fund climate and biodiversity projects raised more than $30mn in one night, while the amfAR auction last May fetched more than $17mn. 

The connection between the two men stretches back to “a previous life”, says de Pury, now 72, referring to the 1980s, when he was curator of the Thyssen-Bornemisza art collection in Lugano, and Elkann, now 46, was a child. “I first met Lapo’s grandfather, Gianni Agnelli. I remember it very clearly because he is one of the most extraordinary men that I’ve met in my whole life.” 

The Agnelli name is synonymous with Fiat , the Turin-based car manufacturer, which was founded by Giovanni Agnelli in 1899. His grandson Gianni took over in 1966 and is remembered not only for his business acumen and staggering wealth, but his fashion sense and playboy lifestyle. This went hand-in-hand with his devotion to (and later ownership of) Juventus FC. “If Lapo has inherited one thing from his grandfather, it’s his charisma,” says de Pury, sitting side by side with his friend at his Portuguese home: a relaxed, mostly open-plan space with a beachy vibe, walls of floor-to-ceiling glass doors, and the odd Fiat 500 popping out from a wall. 

Today, the family firm – which merged first with Chrysler and is now part of the Stellantis conglomerate – is helmed by Elkann’s older brother John, but Lapo has been living up to Gianni’s legacy of fast cars, sharp suits and entrepreneurial verve. He started out in the family fold as director of worldwide brand promotion at Fiat – a role that saw him revive the dinky, retro Fiat 500. After a much-publicised and nearly fatal drug overdose in 2005, he rebounded with a new venture in 2007: eyewear brand Italia Independent. 

There’s a lot of fun, humour and a joy of life in Lapo’s aesthetic Simon de Pury

“The beauty of life is that it has many cycles – you can recycle yourself and do different things in different phases and moments,” reflects Elkann, whose CV includes heading up the Ferrari Tailor-Made programme (the then-Fiat-owned brand’s customisation service). More recently, he launched Garage Italia Customs , a bespoke car showroom that opened in a Milanese petrol station in 2015. As well as souping up the bodywork, paintwork and upholstery of any make of car or motorbike – not to mention the odd boat, plane and helicopter – the space boasts a restaurant and café. “I love what Lapo has done – the place is stunning,” says de Pury. “It’s the result of his unique taste and artistic vision.” 

Elkann nods. “Now I have reached a phase where I want to be more of an artist than of an entrepreneur,” he says. In 2021, he sold Garage Italia Customs (but still owns the Milan building), followed by the sale of Italia Independent last year, although he remains creative director of the company. In September, he launched a range of suits with sustainable Spanish brand Ecoalf. “In every phase of my life, Simon has always been someone I’ve reached out to for advice,” says Elkann, who also holds the title of godfather to de Pury’s youngest daughter, 12-year-old Diane Delphine. “It’s an honour to be able to exchange ideas with Simon. He is a visionary – he’s always pioneering.” 

De Pury initially wanted to be an artist, and studied painting at Tokyo University of the Arts in the 1970s. His auction career spans high-profile roles at Sotheby’s and later at Phillips (renamed for a period Phillips de Pury and Company, when de Pury acquired the majority share). Nicknamed “the Mick Jagger of art auctions”, he has been profiled in a BBC documentary, The Man with the Golden Gavel , and played a cameo role in  Emily in Paris . In 2020, he curated the inaugural exhibition programme for Newlands House gallery in Petworth, West Sussex, and launched the digital platform de PURY . As well as the de PURY Presents series of exhibitions – which most recently showed the ceramic work of Kenyan artist Lana Trzebinski – the site’s online auctions are conducted by a de Pury avatar. 

One point of difference between the two friends is their approach to fashion. They sit at opposite ends of the sartorial spectrum: Elkann favours Italian tailoring in flamboyant rainbow-bright shades (but today is wearing a light-blue T-shirt, showing off tattooed arms), while de Pury sticks to a shirt and suit combo in navy, white and grey. “My way of dressing is phenomenally boring,” he says. “I’ve worn the same clothes for the past 50 years. One always says don’t judge a book by its cover – it’s covering up how wild I am inside.” 

De Pury does, however, own many pairs of Elkann’s carbon-fibre Italia Independent sunglasses, “which I believe have become collector’s items in their own right”, as well as a T-shirt from a past collaboration with Adidas in a colour he calls Lapo blue. “It is very extravagant, with little crystals in the fabric. You’ll never see me wearing it – I’ve only worn a T-shirt once in my life – but I view it as a work of art.” 

When it comes to art, the pair are “fully on the same wavelength”, says de Pury. “I went to see Lapo in his office once and he stood in front of this amazing painting by Basquiat and Warhol, which is one of my absolute favourite collaborations.” Between 2003 and 2008, Elkann was on the board of Phillips alongside de Pury: “My knowledge of art is nothing compared to Simon’s, but it is a passion of mine,” he says, adding that being taken to see art with his grandfather from a young age was a “humongous privilege”. 

“Lapo’s taste is what I would call high and low,” smiles de Pury. “There’s a lot of fun, humour and a joy of life in his aesthetic,” he adds, highlighting Elkann’s displays of football jerseys and Formula One helmets. “The way he has arranged them, it becomes the most spectacular artwork.” 

Elkann prefers not to dwell on the past but doesn’t shy away from talking about recovery. “I’m very proud of my sobriety,” he says. “It’s a day-by-day job. Every day is a success. I obviously have a great wife [in 2021 he married Portuguese former rally raid racer Joana Lemos, who is now the vice president of Fondazione Laps] and the truth is that I actually like recovery.” He removed himself from Instagram five years ago: “I have to say it’s a much better way of life. And giving scarcity of what you are doing makes it more interesting and intriguing.” 

One thing that hasn’t changed, though, is Elkann’s no-holds-barred approach. “Every time I see Lapo, he sparks off a thousand ideas a minute,” says de Pury. When the two men meet up, they like to brainstorm together, and whether it’s about their individual projects or dreaming up future collaborations, the process, says Elkann, “is a bit like dynamite, in a positive way.” 

de-pury.com . lapsonlus.org

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Rebel Style: The Man Who Walks to the Very Edge of Fashion

No offense, Hef, but Lapo Elkann is now the world's reigning playboy. The jet-setting Fiat scion pulls off high-degree-of-difficulty moves—wearing safety orange the way most men wear navy, matching his double-breasted suits to his Ferrari's paint job—and makes no apologies for it. "I always say, why should women be sexy and men not?" Elkann tells us. "That's what we really worked on with this line." By which he means Lapo's Wardrobe, his second capsule collection with Gucci, launched this month. Even if you pony up for the clothes, you'll still need Elkann's secrets on how to dress your mood—whether you wake up feeling kind of blue or, more likely, a little chartreuse.

_ Lapo’s Wardrobe for Gucci: Made-to-measure at Gucci, Fifth Ave., N.Y.C.; 212-826-2600. All sunglasses by Italia Independent; italiaindependent.com. _

Make the Tux Crowd Green with Envy

To Elkann, black tie is a state of mind, not a mandate. "When I look at the Oscars," he says, "I always see the actors dressed all alike—and very few of them are, how you say, really elegant." There's a vast middle ground between looking like every other guy and stepping out in the male equivalent of Björk's swan dress. So yeah, you could copy Elkann's look with a jade green tux, flouncy lapels, and a big fat bow tie, but just one sartorial juke will do if you're shy.

Because ankle straps aren't peacocky enough, Elkann's Gucci shoes can also be monogrammed.

Become an Iconoclast (by Stealing from Your Icons)

On the rare day that Elkann leaves the house unsuited, he'll channel one of his style idols, like midcentury French yachtsman Éric Tabarly, the most laissez-faire man to ever set sail. In homage, Elkann wears Mediterranean classics with his own spin, like undone shoulder buttons on a nautical sweater and—his favorite power move—a jacket worn as a cape. "It has an energy and a flair," Elkann says. "It's a very elegant outfit which you can wear on your boat." Be it a Sardinian yacht or the Staten Island Ferry.

"Women don’t want to have an unsexy man. Women want their man to look as sexy and elegant and refined as they do."

To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories .

On the Road with Lapo Elkann: Italy's Ultimate Insider Gives Us the Grand Tour

A quick tour of **Lapo Elkann’**s latest outpost for Italia Independent, the eyewear and lifestyle label he co-launched nearly seven years ago, reveals the charismatic Italian entrepreneur and self-confessed workaholic’s very personal point of view. Consider, first, that a myriad of colored spectacles—customizable in around three million different combinations, including frames covered in velvet or tattoo prints and camouflage side bars—are displayed on busts of Julius Caesar. And a consulting room offers eye examinations complete with whimsical charts featuring cars, dancers, and “for fashionistas,” he says, “there are shoes.” A new capsule collection with Karl Lagerfeld (who wears the brand’s velvet model) is also for sale, as are accessories reflective of Elkann’s world, like unisex belts with carbon buckles. “They don’t set off security at airports, I’ve tried them,” he laughs. There also are personal artworks, a guitar, and a chair hauled from his home to decorate the space. (Elkann’s design and branding atelier, Independent Ideas, has brought a quirky spin to countless other collaborations ranging from lightweight carbon wheelchairs, Smeg fridges, and tailor-made services for Ferrari and Fiat.)

But now, Elkann is pacing in front of an empty coffee cup in Caffè Italia, a bar facing the Italia Independent shop, and is raring to give Vogue Daily a glimpse—from the passenger seat of his customized Fiat 500 Abarth—into his private Milanese lifestyle. Elkann is a defiant poster boy for “Made in Italy 2.0,” his own words to describe the country he calls home, which currently is being reenergized by a surge of ambitious, young talent, himself chief among them. “I don’t want to judge or criticize the past, but we’re making our own road,” he says, stepping over a camouflage doormat to exit the Italia Independent shop.

The effervescent grandson of Gianni Agnelli weaves in and out of the Milanese traffic in his own Fiat 500, hand-painted (“not wrapped,” he underlines) with a houndstooth pattern of his own design. He also has one in pinstripes. First stop is the Triennale Design Museum and a tour of the Fornasetti retrospective, “100 Years Practical Madness.” Elkann Instagrams some of his favorite pieces, including a tie (and his favorite shade of Riva blue). An avid collector of Italian art, he owns works from the likes of Lucio Fontana, Alighiero Boetti, Ettore Sottsass, and Mario Schifano (he’s a particular fan of the painter’s palm trees, which he’s also tattooed on his forearm). After nipping into the gift store to pick out a customizable watch to gift a colleague for his birthday, he bumps into friends Margherita Missoni with her husband, Eugenio Amos, and their new baby, Otto. A quick catch-up, then back in the car to Larte, a new restaurant that specializes in Italian culinary products. Elkann heads straight into the kitchen at break-neck speed. On first-name terms with the chef, he asks about the fish of the day. There is no dawdling. “If you stop for lunch elsewhere in the world, you tend to eat a sandwich, and a bad one. Italy is unique for the style of life. I think everyone envies it a bit,” he says. But today’s meal is cut short for a meeting at the Italia Independent offices, where on arrival, he jumps into a discussion about a new yacht design for the historical Italian boat-maker, Baglietto. “This is chicissima, so elegant,” he says pointing to a midnight blue prototype called Bagliettino (basically, baby Baglietto) set to preview during the Miami Art Basel in December. “I want it to be the Maserati of the sea.”

For more information: italiaindependent.com

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The Vast Fortune of This Auto Boss Is More Than Enough to Make Your Blood Boil

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As autoworkers are worked to the bone and face factory closures, dynastic billionaire and Stellantis chairman John Elkann is hanging out on his yacht and attending fancy art galas. No wonder the UAW is on strike.

Chairman of Stellantis John Elkann during practice ahead of the F1 Grand Prix of Monaco at Circuit de Monaco on May 26, 2023 in Monte-Carlo, Monaco. (Qian Jun / MB Media / Getty Images)

For the first time ever, US autoworkers are striking against all three members of the “Big Three” auto corporations: General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis (formerly Chrysler). Among other demands , they are fighting for the elimination of wage and benefit tiers, major wage increases, and the restoration of cost-of-living adjustments.

But they’re also fighting for something bigger. A day before the strike began, United Auto Workers (UAW) president Shawn Fain told members that the strike would be about more than bread-and-butter issues. Autoworkers would be taking on the power of the billionaire class.

“I’m at peace with the decision to strike if we have to because I know that we are on the right side in this battle,” said Fain. “It’s the battle of the working class against the rich, the haves versus the have-nots, the billionaire class against everyone else.”

When it comes to Stellantis, Fain’s framing of the autoworkers’ fight as one against billionaire power is especially resonant. Stellantis reported an astounding $12.1 billion in profits for the first half of 2023 — a new company record, it claimed . Stellantis is spending billions on stock buybacks, all while it refuses to meet autoworkers’ demands.

But amid all the coverage of the auto strike, a major fact about who striking Stellantis workers are pitted against at the company has gone almost entirely unmentioned.

John Elkann: The Power Behind Stellantis

The most powerful person at Stellantis is a billionaire named John Elkann.

Elkann is the heir to Italy’s prominent Agnelli family business dynasty, which long owned the Fiat auto empire that is now part of Stellantis. Elkann owns racing yachts and is married into royalty. He sits on the board of prestigious art museums and socializes with everyone from Jeff Bezos to Barack Obama. He and his family own famous soccer and race-car clubs. He is a member of the highest circles of the global corporate elite.

Elkann is also the chairman and executive director of Stellantis and the most powerful figure overseeing the company’s management and strategic direction. He doesn’t just have a major governing role at the auto giant — his family’s holding company is the top shareholder of Stellantis.

Elkann is the CEO of Exor, the Dutch-based holding company through which he manages his billionaire family’s vast global corporate empire, of which Stellantis is a core pillar. Exor has a $33 billion net asset value . It ranks number 317 of the Fortune Global 500 list of top companies worldwide.

According to Stellantis’s most recent annual report , Exor has a 13.99 percent stake in the auto company as of December 31, 2022. Exor’s website states that it has “14.2% of economic and voting rights” at Stellantis as of August 31, 2023. Exor’s website also states that it is the “single largest shareholder” of Stellantis. Its top stake in Stellantis is more than double the second-largest stake of 6.98 percent, which is held by Peugeot Invest.

Elkann’s position atop Exor, overseeing his family’s business empire, rests upon a complex corporate hierarchy that smacks of a storyline out of the hit show Succession .

According to Reuters , John Elkann has a 60 percent share in a company called Dicembre, and his siblings Lapo and Ginevra both have 20 percent stakes. According to Fortune , Dicembre “sits at the top of the Agnellis’ chain of investments.”

Dicembre, in turn, has a 38 percent stake in a private vehicle called Giovanni Agnelli B. V., which has about one hundred shareholders who represent around two hundred living descendants of Giovanni Agnelli, the founder of Fiat. Elkann has also served as chairman of Giovanni Agnelli B. V., though he recently stepped down from that position because of “his desire to concentrate on operational roles” in the family business empire.

Dicembre’s 38 percent stake in Giovanni Agnelli B. V. is the largest stake in that vehicle. In turn, Giovanni Agnelli B. V. is the largest shareholder in Exor, with a 53.2 percent ownership of company shares and control of 86.3 percent of voting rights in the company.

In sum, Elkann’s power rests on the fact that he was the “ handpicked successor ” to lead his family dynasty and has a majority stake in the vehicle Dicembre, which in turn dominates another vehicle, Giovanni Agnelli B. V., that has the controlling stake in Exor, which is the top shareholder at Stellantis.

All told, Elkann doesn’t just directly oversee the board of Stellantis through his chairman position. He and his family are also the company’s top shareholder, and Elkann directly manages their company stake through his leadership roles at both Exor and Stellanis.

Scion to a Billionaire Family Dynasty

According to Forbes , Elkann has a personal net worth of $1.7 billion. His power and wealth come from his position as the leading heir of the superwealthy Agnelli family dynasty. Elkann is the grandson of the late family patriarch, Gianni Agnelli, one of the most powerful figures in postwar Italy.

The Agnellis may be Italy’s most famous and iconic family. They have been called “Italy’s de facto royals” and “the closest thing Italy has to a royal family.” They are one of Europe’s wealthiest families. John Elkann was groomed as the family’s “ ultimate heir ” at Fiat and the person destined to take over leadership of the family’s business empire.

Over the past decade, Elkann moved from his power base in Fiat to his leading role in Stellantis.

In 2014, Fiat completed its acquisition of Chrysler, becoming Fiat Chrysler. Elkann served as Fiat Chrysler’s chairman. Then in 2021, Fiat Chrysler completed a merger with French auto giant PSA to create Stellantis, then the world’s fourth-largest carmaker. Elkann became Stellantis’s chairman, while PSA’s CEO, Carlos Tavares, became Stellantis’s CEO.

In sum, Stellantis today is one of the Big Three auto corporations by way of Fiat’s acquisition of Chrysler and then Fiat Chrysler’s merger with the French PSA Group to become Stellantis. Elkann oversaw both Fiat’s acquisition of Chrysler and the creation of Stellantis.

Elkann oversees the Agnelli family’s huge business through his position as CEO of Exor. According to Exor’s website, its portfolio includes seventeen companies and other business operations across numerous industries.

Stellantis is one of these portfolio companies. Exor also owns Ferrari , the economic luxury car company, and Elkann serves as Ferrari’s chairman . Exor owns yet another auto company, Iveco Group .

Elkann and Exor are also media giants. Exor’s ownership of media companies includes the Economist and GEDI Gruppo Editoriale , which calls itself “the leading Italian media group.” Elkann also serves as GEDI’s chairman . Politico once called Elkann “the new Italian crown prince of European media.”

Exor owns companies in a range of other sectors, from oil and gas , to agricultural machinery , to health technology , to luxury brands .

A Powerful Member of the Global Corporate Elite

Elkann is a major figure within the global corporate elite, with ties to powerful billionaires, top world leaders, and prestigious art museums and sports clubs. He and his family live lives of luxury, owning yachts, lavish estates, and invaluable works of art.

Elkann is widely depicted in the media as a preeminent member of the corporate class. He socializes with Jeff Bezos . He holds interviews with Elon Musk . He shares smiles with Mark Zuckerberg . He serves on the International Council of JPMorgan Chase alongside Jamie Dimon and Henry Kissinger .

World leaders make a point to meet with Elkann. Barack Obama sought him out on a 2014 trip to Italy, where they enjoyed dinner together. He meets with figures like Chinese president Xi Jinping and top European leaders . He hosts Swedish monarchs .

Elkann himself is married — literally — to an Italian princess , Lavinia Borromeo. According to one report , their 2004 wedding on the luxurious Borromean Islands was “the wedding of the decade,” with the wedding reception taking place at Borromeo’s family’s “most famous palace.” Guests included Kissinger and the late billionaire and former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi .

Through Exor, Elkann and his family own the Juventus Football Club in Italy. According to Exor’s website, it holds “63.8% of economic rights” and “77.9% of voting rights” over the club.

Juventus is no ordinary soccer franchise. The New York Times called the club a “perennial Italian champion.” It is one of the world’s most prestigious soccer clubs. Cristiano Ronaldo, one of the best footballers in the world, played for Juventus from 2018 to 2021.

As the head of Exor, Elkann is depicted in the media as a public face of Juventus’s ownership. His family has owned the club for a full century . He regularly attends matches. The club’s top corporate partner is Jeep, owned by Stellantis.

Along with soccer, Elkann also helps ovrsee Scuderia Ferrari, one of the world’s most famous car racing teams. It is a Formula 1 racing club that races at global Grand Prix races. The club is part of the Ferrari business empire that Exor owns and Elkann chairs . Just a few months ago, in June, Elkann celebrated Ferrari’s AF Course team’s victory in the prestigious 24 Hours of Le Mans race.

Elkann is a prominent figure within the arts scene of the superelite. He is a member of the Board of Trustees at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), one of the most prestigious art museums in the world. MoMA’s board is populated by numerous other corporate elites, including Wall Street billionaires like Steven Cohen , Daniel Och , and Leon Black .

The corporate representatives on the boards of elite museums have been the focus of disruptive protest actions. For example, protesters have recently taken action at MoMA against its board chair, Marie-Josée Kravis, whose husband, Henry Kravis, is a private equity billionaire whose firm, KKR, has a controlling stake in the massive Coastal Gaslink Pipeline being built in Canada.

Elkann and his wife have also attended the most exclusive art galas in the world, including the 2023 Met Gala. Elkann’s family has a large and expensive art collection that includes works by Picasso, Renoir, and Matisse. The family also owns lush, storied estates like Villar Perosa , where Elkann famously hosts soccer games.

Defending High CEO Pay

Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares is often depicted as the face of the company. His exorbitant CEO pay has come under criticism from the UAW. In a post on Twitter/X, the union blasted Tavares’s 2022 pay of $24.8 million, stating that “A Stellantis ‘Temp’ Making $15.78/hr would have to work 755 years to match his pay.”

As Stellantis board chairman, it is Elkann who oversees Tavares’s pay. And Elkann has had no qualms about defending high CEO pay at Stellantis.

For example, Stellantis shareholders revolted against the huge pay package of Tavares in 2022. They even passed a nonbinding 52 percent vote opposing the company’s pay plan.

But Elkann defended the huge pay plan. “It is our conviction as a board that in a meritocracy, rewarding on the basis of performance criteria is a fundamental element of our policy,” he told shareholders. He emphasized that the shareholder vote was only a “recommendation.”

Stellantis Workers Versus Billionaire Yacht Owners

Elkann is an avid yachtsman. According to the luxury magazine Lux , Elkann owns a seventy-foot Maserati yacht. Indeed, his family had long owned the Maserati brand, which is now part of Stellantis. Elkann’s Maserati yacht is used by an elite team of sailors who take part in races and try to break world records. Elkann himself sometimes sails with them as a crew member. Elkann also takes part in races of expensive antique cars in Italy.

John Elkann’s brother, Lapo Elkann, is a highly visible member of the global elite. Vanity Fair published an entire profile on him. Lapo owns lush homes and fancy watches . One video on YouTube depicts his “ Life of Luxury ” filled with helicopters and private planes. He’s also seen his share of scandals . Lapo says his brother John is his “ best friend .”

As part of the family dynasty, and with a 20 percent stake in Dicembre, which ultimately controls Exor through its ownership chain, Lapo’s lavish lifestyle in part rests upon Stellantis profits.

As Elkann and his quasi-dynastic billionaire family sail the high seas on their yachts for pleasure, Stellantis is shuttering factories.

As Elkann attends fancy art galas and soccer matches and enjoys a family fortune that he inherited, Stellantis autoworkers are worked to the bone.

As Elkann oversees Stellantis’s reporting of record profits that autoworkers produced, he chooses billions in stock buybacks over meeting autoworker demands. Those stock buybacks further enrich the company’s biggest shareholders: John Elkann and the Agnellis.

Stellantis’s workers are turning out en masse in the fight of their lives. When UAW president Shawn Fain speaks of the billionaire class that autoworkers are up against, he’s talking about people like John Elkann and his ultrawealthy family dynasty.

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Connect with Preferred Yachts 435 IMAGES Lapo Elkann in vacanza a Saint Tropez (con lo yacht camouflage Fiat Heir Lapo Elkann Unveils His Ultra-Stylish New Speedboat Lapo Elkann in vacanza a Saint Tropez (con lo yacht camouflage Fiat Heir Lapo Elkann Unveils His Ultra-Stylish New Speedboat Lapo Elkann vara il suo primo yacht. Guarda le foto del Lap-1 Fiat Heir Lapo Elkann Unveils His Ultra-Stylish New Speedboat COMMENTS Interview with Lapo Elkann, Fiat heir and superyacht owner 27 April 2016 • Written by Stewart Campbell. Climb on board with yacht owner Lapo Elkann. The heir to the Fiat fortune lives fast and sails even faster - thanks to Lap-1_, his 40 knot Baglietto, customised by his own Garage Italia Customs. Stewart Campbell tracks him down in Milan to talk yachts, cars and why his wild days are definitely ... How Lapo Elkann Rebounded from Rock Bottom to Build His Own Business Lapo thought back to his grandfather's all-black racing yacht, Stealth. "Carbon fiber," he says, citing the advantages of the material, which include lightness and incredible strength. Lapo Elkann Lapo Elkann. In the early 1950s, ENI chairman Enrico Mattei commissioned architect Mario Bacciocchi to design an Agip service station that would embody the incredible wave of dynamism sweeping Italy at the time. Sixty years later, that same station has been given a new lease of life by Lapo Elkann who called in another architect, Michele De ... John Elkann a Portofino su yacht di Lapo John Elkann nipote di Gianni Agnelli sul custom yacht Baglietto Lap 1 di suo fratello Lapo. Lapo Elkann Lapo Edovard Elkann (born 7 October 1977) is an Italian businessman, philanthropist, and socialite. He is the chairman, founder, and majority shareholder (53.37%) of the Italia Independent Group. [1] [2] He is also the president and founder of Garage Italia Customs [] and Independent Ideas, [3] as well as a member of the board of directors of Ferrari N.V. and responsible for the promotion of ... Lapo Elkann in vacanza a Saint Tropez (con lo yacht camouflage Lapo Elkann è in vacanza a Saint Tropez con il suo nuovo yacht «camouflage». L'imbarcazione è stata varata lo scorso luglio e porta la firma del designer Francesco Paszkowski. Il rampollo di ... Lapo Elkann's Wild Ride After years of outrageous behavior, Fiat's prodigal scion, Lapo Elkann, has found a new gear designing cars, suits, eyeglasses, watches-- and the ultimate globetrotting life for himself. Lapo Elkann interview on Fiat, Ferrari and Gianni Agnelli Lapo Elkann arrives outside London's Shoreditch House in his personalised Abarth Fiat 500. Personalisation is his calling card. Elkann is a consultant to Ferrari, on a mission to help the company ... Baglietto launches Lap-1 Baglietto launches Lap-1, Lapo Elkann's first MV13 The Lap1, the first MV13, whose prototype had been presented at the Festival de la Plaisance in Cannes, was launched at the Baglietto shipyard today. The launch ceremony was held in the presence of Lapo Elkann, the Owner of this prestigious yacht, who… The shared passions of Lapo Elkann and Simon de Pury Between 2003 and 2008, Elkann was on the board of Phillips alongside de Pury: "My knowledge of art is nothing compared to Simon's, but it is a passion of mine," he says, adding that being ... Fiat Heir Lapo Elkann Unveils His Ultra-Stylish New Speedboat According to a recent ForbesLife profile written by Guy Martin about the ultra-cool, ultra stylish, ultra-Italian heir to the Fiat fortune (and owner of other business ventures), Lapo Elkann is an ... Rebel Style: The Man Who Walks to the Very Edge of Fashion No offense, Hef, but Lapo Elkann is now the world's reigning playboy. The jet-setting Fiat scion pulls off high-degree-of-difficulty moves—wearing safety orange the way most men wear navy ... On the Road with Lapo Elkann: Italy's Ultimate Insider Gives Us the A quick tour of **Lapo Elkann'**s latest outpost for Italia Independent, the eyewear and lifestyle label he co-launched nearly seven years ago, reveals the charismatic Italian entrepreneur and ... John Elkann John Elkann is the CEO of Exor, the holding company of Italy's Agnelli family, which owns stakes in Ferrari and Italian automaker Fiat. Elkann took the leadership role in the family and at Fiat in ... Lapo Elkann: "Il sogno italiano esiste" Lapo Elkann e Renzo Rosso hanno realizzato, mettendo insieme le competenze di Garage Italia Customs e Diesel, un esemplare unico di Fiat 500, cucito su misur... Lapo Elkann in collegamento dall'Arabia Saudita Watch Lapo Elkann, the Italian entrepreneur and fashion designer, share his insights and experiences from Saudi Arabia in this live interview. The Vast Fortune of This Auto Boss Is More Than Enough to ... Elkann's Maserati yacht is used by an elite team of sailors who take part in races and try to break world records. Elkann himself sometimes sails with them as a crew member. Elkann also takes part in races of expensive antique cars in Italy. John Elkann's brother, Lapo Elkann, is a highly visible member of the global elite. St. Petersburg Yacht Sales and Service 727-823-2555 St. Petersburg Yacht Sales and Service 727-823-2555. St. Petersburg Yacht Sales and Service has been serving customers since 1964 and is located in downtown St. Petersburg. We are close by the St. Petersburg Municipal Marina where we have some of our many brokerage boats on display. Home We are full time professional yacht brokers, with a real office, in a real marina with real listings and a sincere passion to help our clients realize their boating dreams. 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