Overview

• On July 25, his Land Rover Defender rolled off a hairpin bend in Abbiadori, Sardinia, but firefighters found him standing and he was airlifted to Olbia’s Giovanni Paolo II Hospital.
• Doctors confirmed fractures to three lower vertebrae, and Giugiaro is now wearing an orthopedic brace as he continues to recover in stable condition.
• He credits the car’s modern safety systems—such as intelligent pretensioning belts, multiple airbags and a reinforced deformation structure—with giving him seven times the survival odds of a 15-year-old vehicle.
• With Italy’s average vehicle age at roughly 15 years and 173,364 road accidents in 2024, he highlights the gap between cutting-edge safety and the broader fleet.
• He says he may channel this ordeal into a new design line focused on making advanced safety features more accessible.