Pio Manzù (1939–1969) was born in Milan in 1939.

He was the first Italian to graduate from the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Ulm, the leading school for industrial design from the mid-1950s throughout the 1960s.

It was there that Manzù discovered his passion for designing car engines. This then led him to design models for small and medium cylinder cars, and then he joined the Fiat Style Center as a consultant in 1967.

Fiat had previously not been especially open to outside cultural contributions, but he was brought in by Dante Giacosa who immediately put his faith in him and let him design and experiment freely.

For Fiat, he designed the City Taxi and the Autobianchi Coupé, both exhibited at the Turin Motor Show.

In 1966, he designed the Cronotime, one of his last designs before his premature death in a car accident in 1969.