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A French Charmer by Bertone

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By Greg Glassner

As a newly minted 2nd Lieutenant in the Army Transportation Corps stationed at Ft. Eustis, Virginia, in 1967, I shared an apartment in Newport News with two other lieutenants. I regularly drove by a local Chevy dealer on the way to the base. A new or used Corvette usually sat on an elevated pedestal in the center of the used car lineup. Being a car nut, I’d scan this arrangement of automotive temptations as I drove by. One day I did a double-take when I spied a pretty little coupe decked out in a pale metallic version of French racing blue.

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On the Block: The Bertone Collection, 2011

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By Roberto Motta, Pete Vack and RM Auctions
Photos courtesy Sotheby/RM Auctions

From our Archives, April 2011

As a consequence of the financial reorganization of Bertone, the liquidators of the Bertone Museum offered six of the most original, thought provoking and classic Italian concept cars ever made. These wonderful cars were auctioned by RM at the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este in Cernobbio, Italy, 21st May, 2011.

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Why Are Italian Cars Beautiful?

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Marque et modele: Alfa Romeo 6C 1750 Gran Sport Touring “Flying Star.” Chassis number 10814341

Story by Brandes Elitch
Photos by Hugues Vanhoolandt

About thirty years ago, someone gave me a copy of a book titled Touring Superleggera, by Carlo Felice Anderloni. It was published in 1983. I started to go through it and was overwhelmed by the staggering beauty of Mr. Anderloni’s creations. Even though I had been observing automobile design for many years previously, I had never seen anything like this before. At some point, I had to physically put the book down and take a deep breath. I had to revise my conceptions of automotive design.

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Lamborghini: At the Cutting Edge of Design V 2

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Forever Young and looking toward the future: The Lamborghini Lp1 800-4

Lamborghini: At the Cutting Edge of Design
By Gautam Sen with Branko Radovinovic and Kaare Byberg
ISBN 978-185443-317-6
784 pages, 2 volumes, hardcover, dustjacket, slipcase
1070 illustrations
U.S. $250

Review by Pete Vack
All photos from the book

Read review of Volume One

Review by Pete Vack

While you and I got old, Lamborghini, under Mimran, Chrysler and Audi, somehow managed to stay forever young. And thank goodness for that. Gautam Sen’s Volume Two of his epic Lamborghini, At the Cutting Edge of Design, leads us into unaccustomed territory, taking us from the Silhouette to the Terzo Millennio, from Mimran to Audi, detailing the models we’ve rarely thought about and introduces us to rare variations we never knew existed. Naturally, we are aware of the supercars and hypercars that were developed by Lamborghini in the 1990s to date. But not by any means too familiar; too many models, too many owners, too much money, too fast and too furious. [Read more…] about Lamborghini: At the Cutting Edge of Design V 2

Bertone’s Aston Martin

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Aston Martin by Bertone, 2013. Credit Bonhams Auction.

From the VeloceToday Archives, December, 2013

By Wallace Wyss

Sometimes it’s the odd one that appreciates the most…

At one time, race cars were fetching a lot more at the major auctions than car show one-offs. The idea was that if you buy a race car, if you’re lucky you get one with history. You buy a show car, a one-off what do you get? A momentary bauble. A flavor of the moment as it were. Designs that came and went, mostly forgotten.

Well this 1960 Aston Martin DB4 GT Bertone Jet coupe, chassis 0201L, Engine no. 370/-201/GT was sold at a May, 2013 Bonhams auction for the top dollar sum of 3,249,500 GBP ($4,928,697 USD) which is more than some Aston Martin DB4GT race cars go for even with some racing history.

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The Real Stories of the Fabled Alfa B.A.T.S

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If you are thinking about spending as much as 20 million (or more) on three used Alfas at tomorrow night’s Sotheby’s Auction, it is advised that you read the following four articles, which provide additional background information about the Scaglione B.A.T.s. From the Archives of VeloceToday, they were published in 2019 but timely and relevant today.

After making a few sketches, working with Ezio Cingolani, who was responsible for fabrication, Franco Scaglione developed a full size model, watched daily by Nuccio Bertone. This is B.A.T. 5

B.A.T. 5: A Stunning Achievement

What are these openings for? One, to strengthen the rather large fin itself, and two, to allow some of the air to escape that was ‘tunneled’ through the extremely inward curved fins on B.A.T. 7.

B.A.T. 7: The Best of the Bunch

Aiming to create more of a GT car and needing a direct connection with Alfa, Scaglione forgot penetration and allowed the use of the new Giulietta grille on B.A.T. 9.

B.A.T. 9d: Ready for the Road

Courtesy Centro Documentazione Storica Alfa Romeo

Scaglione, Strother MacMinn and the B.A.T.s

All three to be auctioned as one lot, tomorrow, October 28 in New York. Click here for RM Sotheby’s Auction Website

Vanhoolandt at Retromobile Bertone Display

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Photos by Hugues Vanhoolandt
Text by staff

Despite being under the weather in more ways than one, Hugues Vanhoolandt returned from Retro last week and was able to send us a selection of photos from the display of the Bertone collection, which now includes a few post Gandini era concept cars. While at the show, Hugues determined to wait and snap interior photos when possible, as unusual and advanced interiors were the hallmark of Gandini’s art, and it was carried on after his departure from Bertone in 1978. The magic left with him. [Read more…] about Vanhoolandt at Retromobile Bertone Display

It Must be B.A.T. 1

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Story and photos by Rick Carey

This article originally appeared in VeloceToday in 2003 and again in 2018. Due to the many requests we had to see this article after the series on the B.A.T.s as published last week, we thought it might be nice to give everyone a chance to read it again without a premium subscription.

I’ve always admired the work of Franco Scaglione. Anyone who could create the B.A.T.s on the tall-engined Alfa 1900 chassis, who displayed such sympathy for airflow and was willing to challenge convention with shape and curve rather than embellishment and accoutrement, was an exceptional talent. And full credit also to Nuccio Bertone who gave Scaglione free rein to reinvent extravagantly. [Read more…] about It Must be B.A.T. 1

B.A.T. 5: A Stunning Achievement

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Photos by Jonathan Sharp
Text by Pete Vack

The display of the three B.A.T. Alfas was held at the Phillips Auction House in Berkeley Square, London and only displayed for four days, November 20-23. Jonathan Sharp attended on a Wednesday afternoon and here is the first of three reports.

The first of the B.A.T.s was perhaps the most celebrated, gaining notice in magazines across the western hemisphere. But was it the first? Rick Carey, writing in VeloceToday, thinks the Packard-Abarth Bertone might have been B.A.T. 1. Nevertheless, B.A.T. 5 was shown first in April of 1953 at Turin. [Read more…] about B.A.T. 5: A Stunning Achievement

B.A.T. 7: The Best of the Bunch

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Photos by Jonathan Sharp
Text by Pete Vack

The display of the three B.A.T. Alfas was held at the Phillips Auction House in Berkeley Square, London and only displayed for four days, November 20-23. Jonathan Sharp attended on a Wednesday afternoon and here is the second of three reports.

Oh, poor B.A.T. 7. It was, in our opinion, the best of the trinity, a refined 5 with an even more dramatic aft that was the quintessence of coachbuilder’s art. Just looking at the various views of those remarkable appendages is awe inspiring. How did they do it?

About a year after it was shown at Turin in the spring of 1955, someone came along cut them off. Those beautiful, inspiring wings. Let’s let the late Strother MacMinn and his cohort Robert Henry Gurr tell us what they thought about the car at the time: (Road & Track, July, 1955, Panel Discussion on Automotive Styling.) [Read more…] about B.A.T. 7: The Best of the Bunch

B.A.T. 9d: Ready for the Road

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Photos by Jonathan Sharp
Text by Pete Vack

The display of the three B.A.T. Alfas was held at the Phillips Auction House in Berkeley Square, London and only displayed for four days, November 20-23. Jonathan Sharp attended on a Wednesday afternoon and here is the third of three reports.

While the BAT 9 (aka BAT 9d) will eternally be tied with the story of Gary Kaberle, it failed to attract a lot of attention when introduced at Turin in the spring of 1955. Press coverage had been high with the BAT 7 of 1954, but by the time the third and definitely less dramatic BAT appeared, it was no longer newsworthy, despite being much more roadworthy. It was not until December 1958 that BAT 9 appeared on the cover of Road & Track, no longer news. The Kaberle story is well known, but we’ll recap it here. [Read more…] about B.A.T. 9d: Ready for the Road

Scaglione, Strother MacMinn and the B.A.T.s

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Courtesy Centro Documentazione Storica Alfa Romeo

From the VeloceToday Archives, April 2018. This is an updated version of Chapter 5 of Franco Scaglione, “My Father: His Life in the Words of His Daughter Giovanna” as told to Robert Little, Renzo Carbonaro, Vladimir Pajevic and Ulrich Zensen. Republished with permissions.

The MacMinn Telefax

Instead of presenting a narrative based upon the writing of others who probably had no first or second hand knowledge of the true facts surrounding the creation of the Berlina Aerodinamica Tecnica series, we have chosen to simply quote from a facsimile of a Telefax which should serve to illuminate the B.A.T. process from the standpoint of Bertone. [Read more…] about Scaglione, Strother MacMinn and the B.A.T.s

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