Volkswagens are built in Mexico. Chevrolets are built in India. Mercedes, BMW and Toyota all build vehicles in, well, the United States. The list goes on and on. But one interesting trend uncovered at this year’s Geneva auto show is the globalization of Italy’s most prestigious car designers.

For car enthusiasts, the names Zagato and Pininfarina conjure up images of fat-fendered and ultra-luxurious Italian sports cars. But in Geneva, the Zagato name graces a Chevy-powered sports car that is built in South Africa. Meanwhile, the storied Pininfarina logo can be found affixed to a sedan built by an Indian company specializing in low-cost cars.

“If you want to survive the financial crisis, you have to go global,” said Andrea Zagato, president of Zagato design and the third generation to run his family’s 90-year-old company. Zagato-designed classics are respected and desired around the world. Examples, like a 1964 Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato, can fetch millions of dollars at auction.

“What’s really important is the Italian design,” said Mr. Zagato, as we sat in a small conference area on the company’s show stand. A few feet away, the new Zagato Perana Z-One looked every bit like the swept-back sports cars I used to doodle in my schoolbooks.

The fenders of the Z-One twist and turn over large alloy wheels. The cabin is set far back, and frankly, it’s a drop-dead gorgeous little car. Only 999 will be produced annually and sales begin in Europe and South Africa later this year. United States sales are planned, though an on-sale date has not been confirmed.

The fact that a Zagato-badged car is built in South Africa and is powered by a Chevy motor doesn’t bother Mr. Zagato. He said he believed the financial crisis only accelerated the push for companies, large and small, to globalize production. For well-heeled traditionalists, Zagato will continue to build a limited series of what it refers to as its “atelier” cars. These vehicles are designed and made by hand in Italy, and limited to only nine a year. Prices are deep into six-figure territory, which makes the Perana Z-One’s $75,000 asking price seem like a bargain.

If these traditionalists are put off by the cheaper Perana Z-One, they may run from a car like the Pininfarina-designed Tata Prima sedan. Tata Motors is best known for small economy cars, like the tiny Nano hatchback. Shaped like an egg, the bare-bones Nano has a price under $3,000 and goes on sale in India in a matter of weeks. Tata has never built its own luxury car, much less one with an Italian designer label on the fenders.

Pininfarina may be best known for its design work on Ferraris, but the company is saddled with a huge debt, according to this report from Autoblog, and could be facing tough times. Last year, its charismatic chief executive, Andrea Pininfarina, died in a scooter accident.

But Pininfarina could find its footing by teaming with Tata, India’s largest auto manufacturer. The two companies need what the other can offer. Tata could use a boost of sex appeal, while Pininfarina could simply use the work. Ratan Tata, chairman and chief executive of the Tata Group, hinted that the Prima could be the start of a successful business relationship.

He said that he hoped the Prima concept car “will be an indication of what Italy and India can do together,” adding that the Prima could be in production within three years.

For all the talk of a subdued Detroit show, with automakers dispensing with flash and playing soberly to Washington, it was refreshing to see at least one manufacturer pay brave tribute to the auto show’s glitzier heritage.

The event was Monday’s Lamborghini fashion show, compete with many of the standard fashion-show trappings: thumping techno, gaggled photographers and of course models, in this case sporting clothing and accessories from the Lamborghini Arti Marca winter collection.

The four models, dressed in racing-style jackets, cargo pants and tan boots (Lamborghini makes boots!) gave it a game effort. They swung their hips — the women did, at least — and emitted professional pouts to the cameras’ collective pan, all while deftly vamping around and between the three Lamborghinis on display. (For those sticks-in-the-mud who believe a car show is about cars, there were a blue Murcielago LP 640 coupe; a white Gallardo LP 560-4 Spyder; and a blue Gallardo LP 560-4 coupe, all painted in matte colors.)

But after little more than five minutes it was over; the music went silent and the models disappeared behind a black curtain. And we were still in Detroit, not Milan or Paris, in the midst of a deep recession.

As the cameras dispersed and the reporters drifted away to cover the next electric-vehicle intro, only a distressing thought remained: If fashion models can’t save us, who can?

Maybe they should look into used Crown Vics.

In Italy, where distracted driving and auto anarchy is a cultural thing, a few police officers patrol in Lamborghini Gallardos that make well over 500 horsepower. So it was only a matter of time before a driver — even one trained in using the supercar — racked one up.

Of course, it wasn’t his fault, according to The Guardian. The bruised and battered officer, cruising in Cremona, apparently tried to avoid a Seat Ibiza slowly emerging from a gas station. The Seat driver clipped the Lambo — no word of its speed at the time, but likely well under the 200-mile-per-hour maximum — and it rammed into a line of parked cars.

One of the stationary cars was hit so hard that it flipped and landed on the Gallardo’s roof.

The policeman and his passenger were injured, but not seriously, the newspaper said. The front end of the $200,000 police car was crushed.

A trio of Lamborghini LP560-4s were presented to the Italian state police last year to help contain speeders on the autostradas (more than 4,700 people died on Italy’s roads last year). The cars are tricked out in police-blue-and-white trim and equipped with a video surveillance camera, gun racks, GPS, organ transplant fridge (in the luggage compartment) and defibrillator.

Italian motorists have a hard-earned and, in my experience, a much-deserved reputation for recklessness, general anarchy and driving well in excess of posted speed limits on the country’s highways, byways and autostradas.

It seems only fair that the Italian version of the highway patrol has been armed by Lamborghini with the world’s fastest police car. The automaker has just presented the latest version of its Gallardo LP560-4 sports car, all tricked out in law enforcement trim, to the Italian state police.

In addition to catching speeders, the 2009 Gallardo has been outfitted with a video surveillance camera, gun racks, GPS, organ transplant cooler (in the luggage compartment) and defibrillator.

This version of the Gallardo produces 560 horsepower and has a top speed of 203 miles an hour. It actually replaces an older, slower (just 180 m.p.h. or so) Gallardo that had seen some 87,000 miles of service around Rome since 2004. No doubt all of those miles were used on official police business, right?

Well, it seems the car did somehow manage to show up in New York City in 2005 for the Columbus Day parade. A third blue-light Gallardo has been patrolling in the Bologna region of north central Italy the past three years. It only has 62,000 miles on its odometer.

Informant’s tip: Watch out for the new Gallardo patrolling the A3 Autostrada between Salerno and Reggio Calabria in southern Italy.