The Pininfarina family announced earlier today that it will sell its 50.6 percent stake in the legendary design firm to allow the company to cope with its $839.5 million debt. Pininfarina, the company, says it is ending contract manufacturing to focus on its line of electric vehicles, which were previewed by the B0 concept car at the Paris Motor Show in October.

The family’s holding company, Pincar, will sell its stake and choose an adviser by February 28. It will also assume 180 million in debt to allow Pininfarina to have the working capital necessary for 2009. The deal will reschedule the company’s debts – otherwise, losses in 2008 would have wiped out Pininfarina’s limited capital.

Pininfarina has suffered heavily as a result of the massive downturn in new car sales, but the company was also hit hard earlier this year when then-CEO Andrea Pininfarina died when the Vespa scooter he was riding was hit by a car.

The company says that, as a result of the restructuring, it will have to focus on building electric vehicles – not on providing contract design. In recent years, Pininfarina had expanded its efforts beyond mainly automobiles into the world of household and business design.

It is unknown what will happen to Pininfarina’s current production facilities, which build the Alfa Romeo Brera and Spider in Italy and the Volvo C70 convertible in Sweden, among other vehicles. The company will continue to build cars under contract until at least 2011.

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