Carrozzeria Touring was set up in 1926 when the Milanese lawyers Felice Bianchi Anderloni and Gaetano Ponzoni bought a controlling interest in Carrozzeria Falco. Bianchi Anderloni took charge of styling and engineering. Touring developed the Superleggera (“super light”) construction system, patented in 1936: a structure of small-diameter tubes forming the body shape, with thin alloy panels attached to cover and strengthen the frame. It first appeared at the 1937 Mille Miglia on an Alfa Romeo 6C 2300B, and Touring became famous for Superleggera bodies on the Alfa Romeo 8C 2900 and BMW 328.
After the war it designed the Ferrari 166 MM barchetta of 1948. In the late 1950s David Brown entrusted Touring with the next-generation Aston Martin GT after the DB2, resulting in the DB4, DB5 and DB6. The licence allowed Aston Martin to use the design and Superleggera construction at Newport Pagnell for a fee of 9 pounds for each of the first 500 bodies and 5 pounds for each further one. Touring also designed the Lagonda Rapide, the Sunbeam Venezia of 1963 to 1964, and the styling of the Jensen Interceptor.
As manufacturers moved to monocoque construction and took bodies in-house, Touring wound up in 1966. The name was revived in 2006 by a new company near Milan.
