Pubbli Auto, founded in 1958, was a well-known historic Italian company that, starting from the early 1970s, created the official paint liveries for the Fiat group of many rally cars that have become legend: Lancia Fulvia, Lancia Stratos, Fiat 131 to quote the most famous.
Vinicio Mais, founder of Pubbli Mais, says that in 1985 the Abarth executives were in great agitation due to the sudden and unexpected closure of Pubbli Auto. Several works had been left unfinished, there was a rush to reschedule the production of graphics and the development of the Martini liveries on the Lancia cars that would take part in the World Rally Championships. It must be said that unlike the days of Pubbli Auto during which this company was also entrusted with the full production of liveries, after 1985 and the end of the collaboration with Pubbli Auto, Abarth equipped itself with a painting oven and did not concentrate plus all the production and decoration work on one company; on the contrary, it distributed it to some realities and each of these took on a specific task (for example, the internal bodywork department, Nitro & C., dealt in particular with the production in large numbers). Pubbli Mais was contacted for his experience in the paint graphics sector - on the other hand, Vinicio Mais was already known for having previously collaborated with Abarth and Fiat for the creation of various world premiere graphics, besides he worked on the cars of the Agnelli family and on Fiat industrial projects - and thus took care of completing the works begun and not finished by Pubbli Auto (see Delta S4 and LC2) and developing the liveries proposed by Abarth in paint on the cars.
It can be said that Pubbli Mais took up the position left vacant by Pubbli Auto and began a closer and more constant collaboration with Abarth which coincided with an equally important and epic period, that of the Martini graphics for the multiple world champion Lancia Delta Integrale. The historical continuity of Pubbli Auto - Pubbli Mais was guaranteed by the identical artisanal methods and by the passage of Michele Mininni - a leading collaborator of Pubbli Auto - to Pubbli Mais exactly in the year 1985, that is with the closure of the company for which he worked. Mininni formed with Vinicio Mais - owner of Pubbli Mais - a very strong couple who had already worked together, albeit at a young age, at the time of the company from which everything was born, the IPAI (Iscrizioni Auto Pubblicitarie Torino), in which he initially worked also the owner of Pubbli Auto. In addition to this research and development work - which resulted in the creation of the definitive Martini graphics for the presentation to the press of the various Lancia ECV, ECV2, Lancia Delta 4WD, Lancia Delta Integrale, Lancia Delta 16v red and white, as well as a whole series of specimens of each new model - there was also a parallel production of very relevant paint graphics from 1985 onwards: in our archive hundreds and hundreds of paint jobs on racing cars are annotated in detail (both in Martini livery and Totip, Grifone , Fina, and other satellite stables, an archive that is still kept at our premises), works for other things of which the engineers, mechanics or drivers of Abarth who brought the cars to us with transport trucks are living witnesses.
Pubbli Mais also holds the record for having performed in its history at least one example of all the most famous official Fiat, Lancia and Abarth cars on the basis of surveys taken from original cars at the time.
If you want to have a little fun, you can even find traces of us even in the comments among fans extrapolated from the forums of the 2000s in which in the pre-social era we talked about us (search on google for "abarth", "livree", "martini", "pubblimais" or "publimais" written with a single b to find some still existing web page of these once very populated forums).
If you wish to further explore the origins of IPAI, Pubbli Auto and Pubbli Mais you can click on this LINK.