NEWS worthy Clips (1/3)

Update your vocabulary with news clips from around the world 

Driven by Design

Cloaked in a silver canvas, the machine sat on the roof of a glass-and-steel box in the industrialized outskirts of Turin, Italy. At its side stood three senior designers from Pininfarina, the automotive-styling house.

Jason Castriota, best known for his Ferrari exteriors, the shroud to expose a full-sized, extremely realistic replica of Maserati’s new Gran Turismo coupe. The model, which functions as a prototype during the styling process, is literally a sculpture, crafted by hand from a milled resin called epoxy wood. As the three men took in the taut skin and graceful lines, Castriota recalled an insight from a former Pininfarina design director:“The difference between beautiful and ugly often comes down to one millimeter.”

Castriota and his colleagues apparently nailed that last millimeter. In March 2007, the world got its first of maserati’s new $125,000 GT coupe at the International Geneva Motor Show, and it was promptly hailed as “a sculpture on wheels” and “one of the year’s most beautiful cars.” That was music to the ears of both Maserati and Pininfarina, but for very different reasons.

Maserati saw it as a sign that its long nightmare might finally be over. The company, after all, hadn’t turned a profit since the Fiat Group acquired it in 1993. But after a half-century , the Modena carmaker and the Turin styling studio reunited. Maserati has since sold about 10,000 of its 2004 Quattroporte sedans, and the first batch of 2008 GTs sold out almost instantly. For managing director Roberto Ronchi, the fate of those two models represents that of Maserati itself. As he conceded in an interview, his is a three-model company, “and there’s no way to survive if these two models don’t do well.”

Vocabulary Focus

storied (adj) ---often spoken of or written about; famous

nail (v) ---to do something successfully with precision

hiatus (n) ---a short pause in which nothing happens

Specialized terms

shroud (n) ---罩子；覆盖物 a layer of something which covers or surrounds something

craft by hand (v phr) ---手工制作 to make something skillfully without the use of machines

turn a profit (v phr) ---开始获利 to begin to gain money