“My ambition is to design, build and drive my own cars”

Stefano Picasso is a man of futuristic cars. He established his brand Picasso Automotive four years ago in Switzerland as a supercar manufacturer whose leading project, the 660 LMS, naturally packs 660CV with an all-aluminum 90° V6 Twin Turbo. And he’s getting ready to race with it himself on the fastest circuits. But the engineer, turned driver with his own vehicles, goes into the Saudi desert aboard an old Suzuki Vitara alongside Gianluca Biondi. Why the vintage experience? Stefano also has a concept for a “Buggy Dakar Picasso” he wants to debut in 2025. In the meantime, a first experience in the Dakar Classic shall give him a better understanding of the challenges posed by the world’s greatest rally.

“There are two projects. One is the supercar, which is almost done. We have prototypes on the ground, we are doing all the tests and I’m doing the international license to race with it in GT2 next year.
On the other side, from January, we will be thinking about the next Dakar, with the idea to participating in the 2025 edition in T1 with our own power unit and our internal engineering, so it would be a ‘Buggy Dakar Picasso’.
Nunzia [Del Gaudio] and Ermanno [De Angelis] offered me to do the Dakar Classic because they know I want to start understanding what happens during this event, how the terrain is, what the challenges are, how it works and how I can make the proper vehicle for this. My ambition is to design, build and drive my own cars.
I come from a normal family, without the money for race cars. I was an engineer in regatta and then I had this opportunity with cars. I started driving my own prototypes. I found out I had a really good feeling, some type of gift rather than experience. Driving off road is a new thing for me. I did some tests in Tunisia and I like it, I have a good sensation. I like a lot doing things away from the track circuits, it’s entertaining.”