His book showcases the combinations of 43 different colour shades applied to various components of the Fiat 127 Special’s body, resulting in 288 unique versions of the car.

Renamed Chameleon, the car changes its colours depending on where it is parked. These shifting palettes are inspired by the colour pairings found in the houses designed by Le Corbusier – where Cristian Chironi has lived and worked as part of his ongoing project My house is a Le Corbusier. In Chironi’s hands, the car is not merely a means of transport, but a symbol of how our relationship with space evolves, a tool for exploring what it means to live somewhere, and how mobility can connect people, cultures, and identities.

The decision to use this particular car is closely tied to Chironi’s hometown of Orani – in the heart of Sardinia – and to a story involving Costantino Nivola, the artist and sculptor, as well as a friend and collaborator of Le Corbusier. Chironi and Nivola, both from Orani, left their village, albeit in different eras, and returned only after a series of life-changing encounters around the world that reshaped their respective ideas of what it means to belong somewhere.

The origins of this project go back to a story Cristian heard from Daniele, Nivola’s nephew and the true inspiration behind it all. In the early 1980s, when Nivola was seriously ill and living in the United States, he wrote to Daniele asking him to bring all his belongings from his Tuscan home back to Orani.

“He told me to take whatever was there,” Daniele recalls, “Everything. Even the car! There were two art posters of some value. Steinberg. There were his own sculptures, paintings by Maria Lai, Giovanni Pintori, Salvatore Fancello. The Picasso was already gone. In the end, I even left some sketches behind. There wasn’t enough room in the car.”

Unaware of the true value of what he was transporting, Daniele set off from the port of Civitavecchia in a Fiat 127 packed with artworks, returning to the village with the realisation that he had brought back only a small part of a much larger cultural and emotional legacy. What exactly did that car carry, and what did it bring back? It was not just physical objects, but the beginning of a symbolic journey: a call to get moving and to feel at home wherever you are. That same car, charged with memory and significance, has been reimagined by Chironi – transformed into a vehicle back on the road, and into a tool for reflecting on the challenges of our time.

In this booklet, the 288 versions are presented in accordance with the associations of Le Corbusier’s color keys, which inspired the project.
The liveries of the already customized vehicles are highlighted, including the version name, the city, the year of creation, and the related context.
The color schemes were measured using a spectrophotometer and subsequently converted according to the FOGRA39 color profile, to optimize their reproduction in the offset printing process used for this publication.

Should you wish to customise your own car, you will find here the details of the Fiat 127 Special (Chameleon), offered as a source of inspiration.

ISBN: 979-12-82253-06-2
Format: 16.5 x 23.5 cm
Pages: 184
Language: Ita./Eng.
Edition of 300 copies
Year: 2025
Graphic design – Marco Casella (VISIVO std) and Cristian Chironi
Published by Fondazione MACC