Chi Siamo — Testadoro | Dario Pasqualini e la Martelleria Giacometto

About us

A living project. Not a restoration.

Turin, 1946. A small workshop with a clear vision of how a car should move. That vision is still here today.

The Origins

Born in the workshop, not the factory.

In the context of Turin's industrial reconstruction, Testadoro was born as a project of mechanical experimentation. Small, direct, without frills.

Form still follows function.

We do not add elements for purely aesthetic purposes. Every proportion has a mechanical reason. Just as in 1946, just as today.

We are not a museum. We are an active mechanical project that uses the past as a starting point.

A project from the past brought back to life.

The Barchetta 1951 stems from the reconstruction of a historical project that remained unfinished for over seventy years. From original drawings found in the archives, a sports car designed for the 1100 class took shape, featuring a tubular trellis chassis and a low, sleek body that was very advanced for its time. Dario Pasqualini chose to build it today with the utmost fidelity, turning a 1951 concept into a real automobile.

Craftsmanship, technique and research to build the Barchetta.

To bring the Barchetta 1951 back to life, the chassis was built from Chrome-Molybdenum steel by OMS, while the body was hand-beaten aluminum by Martelleria Giacometto in Cumiana. Unveiled in 2021, the car has participated in historic events and circuits, eventually reaching the National Automobile Museum in Turin, where it was featured in the "Arte di Boita" exhibition.

Bringing the expertise of Turin coachbuilding to the museum.

The Barchetta experience and Dario Pasqualini's research gave rise to "Arte di Boita," an exhibition-performance hosted by MAUTO in 2023. The project introduced the public to a now-rare way of building cars, showcasing live clay modeling, the construction of wooden bucks and the hand-beating of panels. An exhibition designed not just to showcase, but to pass on methods, gestures, and technical culture to new generations.

A new car with the spirit of vintage racing.

The Testadoro Siluro is a contemporary sports car, road-legal and hand-built in Turin, created to restore the essential charm of 1950s race cars. The new model was unveiled at Goodwood Festival of Speed 2026. Lightweight, compact, and free of the superfluous, it combines modern mechanics with artisanal craftsmanship to offer a direct, authentic, and engaging driving experience. The chassis and mechanics are developed by Caterham Cars, while the style and bodywork bear the signature of Dario Pasqualini and Martelleria Giacometto.

The panel beaters: the hands that shape the cars.

Paolo, a Turin native a few years younger than Dario, left a career as a jeweler to follow his passion for artisanal coachbuilding. He trained under two master panel beaters before opening his own workshop, Martelleria Giacometto in Cumiana.

As one of the youngest panel beaters in the province, he is committed to keeping this craft alive. Every Testadoro project have been born in his workshop, from the Barchetta 1951 to the new Testadoro Siluro 2-litri, whose hand-beaten aluminum body caught the public's attention at the Festival of Speed in Goodwood.

Explore the workshop

Who's behind the project

Dario Pasqualini is a Turin native born in 1971 with a background in industrial quality control who, in 2017, became fascinated by the history of Turin’s artisanal coachbuilding.

He discovered the Testadoro brand, which had fallen into obscurity, and in 2019 decided to acquire it, starting a search through historical documents and drawings. After finding the sketches for a 1951 race car that was never built, he brought it to life from scratch by involving local Turin artisans. Thus, the Barchetta 1951 was born, featuring a tubular chassis, aluminum bodywork, and Fiat 1100 mechanics, achieving great success at numerous events and exhibitions.

In 2023, he curated a six-month exhibition at the National Automobile Museum in Turin titled "Arte di Boita," dedicated to the coachbuilding techniques used in small Turin workshops during the 1950s and 60s.

Since 2025, he has been working on the Testadoro Siluro 2-litri, a "continuation" of the last historical model Testatoro Daniela from 1949: a Siluro body with a 1950s aesthetic, but with modern, road-legal mechanics developed with Caterham. Each unit is built entirely by hand in Turin, with the bodywork entrusted to the Martelleria Giacometto in Cumiana, and is available in a very limited run.