October 7th, 2011 by NZ Classic Car
Concept cars are often a big deal one minute and have disappeared the next, but what happens to these forward-focused machines. Sometimes they are pulled apart, mostly they are hidden away in the huge archive style garages of carmakers but very occasionally they are offered up for auction.
While not a recent concept by any means the BMW Spicup found its way into private ownership and has recently been auctioned by Bonhams at a German event. The Spicup concept was first unveiled by Bertone at the 1969 Geneva Motor Show and unlike many concepts was built to be driven. It was based on the chassis of a BMW 2000 CS and powered by a 2.5-litre inline six-cylinder engine. It’s unclear what happened to it directly after the show but some years later it was acquired by a Dutch owner who drove it around regularly, but then the concept car disappeared for a couple of decades. Read the rest of this entry »
May 25th, 2011 by NZ Classic Car
Last weekend saw one of the biggest fixtures on the international classic car calender when the annual Concorso d’Eleganza returned to Villa d’Este. There was a staggering display of one-off vehicles and concept cars. But for some in attendance they 
weren’t there to just watch, they were there to buy in RM Auctions first ever auction at the event.
There was a broad range of rare classic on the docket with only one thing in common – being extremely expensive. The top sellers included an art-deco styled 1938 Talbot-Lago T150-C SS (pictured top) which sold for nearly $4.5 million USD, an ultra rare four-cylinder Ferrari 500 Testa Rossa achieved just under $4 million USD, Ford’s 1965 GT40 roadster prototype and the 1947 Bugatti Type 57SC Atalante went for just under $3 million USD each. Ferrari classics on sale included some gems from the 1950s like a 1959 250 California which sold for $3.6M USD and a ’53 250 MM at $3M USD. Not surprisingly it was a ’50s era Ferrari that took top dollar on the day in the form of an exquisite and highly coveted 1955 375 MM selling for $4.8M USD. Read the rest of this entry »
April 1st, 2011 by NZ Classic Car
With recent restructuring at iconic Italian design house Bertone it was decided that its museum will be dissolved and the fine metal that it contains sold. That means it’s auction time and the scene for these for these beautiful machines to be 
bought will be Villa d’Este.
Villa d’Este is famous for the ritzy Concorso d’Eleganza event held there every year, where the rarest of classic cars are shown along side the finest concept cars unveiled throughout the year. This year’s concours show will be the first time that RM Auctions will be holding a sales event at the picturesque Lake Como. The auction house has just announced the range of beautiful classics on the consignment and included are six concept cars from the Bertone Museum, each one-of-a-kind in its own right and available to collectors for the first time.
Up for grabs is the 1967 Lamborghini Marzal, 1970 Lancia Stratos HF Zero, 1963 Chevrolet Testudo, 1974 Lamborghini Bravo, 1980 Lamborghini Athon and 1978 Lancia Sibilo. Each was penned by Bertone, and the vehicles are expected to fetch well into the six and even seven figures range in Euros. Going for the biggest money will be the Marzal, which was once driven by Prince Ranier and Princess Grace at the start of 1967 Monaco Grand Prix, and the Lancia Stratos, which was the first prototype for the iconic supercar rally machine. Read the rest of this entry »
March 4th, 2010 by NZ Classic Car
Bertone, one of Italy’s legendary styling houses, is celebrating 75 years of collaboration with Alfa Romeo by showing the Pandion concept car at the Geneva Motor Show. It’s an aggressive yet stunning coupe designed as a tribute to Alfa Romeo’s one hundred year anniversary.
The Pandion is an extreme and controversial sports car in typical Bertone fashion. The size of the concept car (4620 mm in length, 1971 mm wide, 1230 mm high, 2850 mm wheelbase) offers a compact sports car external dimensions with a large sports car interior feeling, all powered by a 4.7 litre, 450 CV 8-cylinder Alfa Romeo engine.
The partnership between Bertone and Alfa Romeo dates back to the early 1930s and is one of the most famous partnerships in the history of car design due to its incisive draughtsmanship. These characteristics have been applied to 23 models, including one-offs and production cars constructed over the last 75 years.
The Pandion is the first car produced by Mike Robinson in his new role as Design and Brand Director at Bertone. A pure ‘dream car’, the Pandion takes its rightful place as a member of Bertone’s historic Alfa Romeo family: cars that have often been style icons, influencing the history of the automobile and Italian craftsmanship in their design quality.
The name comes from the animal world, as Pandion Haliaetus is the scientific name for an Osprey: a sea hawk that nests and lives in coastal areas. The designers, led by Mike Robinson, have drawn inspiration from the wings of this predator to invent the scissor door opening mechanisms, and from the hawks’ facial markings to project the traditional Alfa family feeling into the next era of design.
In almost a century of Bertone tradition, it is not the first time that natural wonders have inspired the names of concept cars. There was the Corvair Testudo (1963) and, by no coincidence, the Alfa Romeo Canguro (1964), Carabo (1968) and Delfino (1983).
To find out more read about the history between Alfa Romeo and Bertone below.
October 1st, 2009 by NZ Classic Car
Alfa’s classic combination of an all-alloy V6 mated to a de Dion transaxle produced one of the best-handling coupes of the ’80s — Allan checks out a mint survivor
The first thing you notice when you climb aboard one of these ’80s Alfa coupes is the driving position — usually referred to as the ‘Italian ape’ position. If your body is normally proportioned, that means that if you move the driver’s seat too far backwards you’ll barely reach the steering wheel and will need to use the tips of your toes to operate the foot pedals.
Move the seat too far forward and, while you’ll be able to operate the foot pedals properly, the steering wheel will be in your chest. In the end, you accept a compromise and simply find a position that allows you to steer the car adequately without having your knees up around your ears.
Read the rest of this entry »September 10th, 2008 by NZCC Editor
Joe Sackey, Miura expert and author of The Lamborghini Miura Bible (to be published in November 2008 by Veloce Publishing Ltd), tells us that the one-off Lamborghini Miura Spyder has just re-emerged after 40 years.
Built purely as a design exercise, aimed at keeping demand for Lamborghini’s Miura on the crest of a wave, Nuccio Bertone assigned Marcello Gandini a styling project to create a Spyder version of the Miura, commencing in the second half of 1967.
The Lamborghini Bertone Miura Roadster, as it was officially christened, was finished in a light metallic blue with an off-white leather interior with red carpeting. The dashboard and steering remained black, and the steering wheel itself was the original avant-garde unit that was also used on the Marzal. This Miura carried chassis number 3498 (which, in accordance with its one-off prototype status, is not even listed in the factory’s original production chassis number register), and P400 engine number 1642 was fitted.
For the January 1968 Salon de L’Automobile Bruxelles, Bertone pulled off another masterstroke when he unveiled this Miura Spyder to a gob-smacked Ferruccio Lamborghini, who, we are told, only saw the show car for the first time at the preview the day before. However, Bertone told Lamborghini to put any ideas of production right out of his mind: “We couldn’t make this car for production because there were untold problems with stress-tolerance issues involving the chassis and the windscreen. It’s purpose was simply that of a showcar,” Bertone confided to a GM stylist years later.
With its Bertone publicity duties completed, the Spyder was sent to Sant’Agata (where it was famously photographed by both Zagari and Pete Coltrin, and it was fettled by the service department with the idea of making it roadworthy to sell as an expensive one-off.
In 1968, International Lead and Zinc Research Organisation (ILZRO) CEO, the late Shrade Radtke, was looking for something radical to showcase the zinc alloys, coating and plating systems the company promoted for the major manufacturers in the Detroit area. It was decided to purchase a standard production Lamborghini Miura Berlinetta and have it specially built using zinc-based components and trim wherever possible.
Onwards then to Sant’Agata, and a meeting with Paolo Stanzani. However, Stanzani was against the idea of modifying a production Miura, and came up with the convenient solution of offering the one-off Miura Roadster, at the time at Sant’Agata for fettling. The offer was accepted on the spot.
In May of 1969, the “ZN75″ was completed, now adorned with much extra brightwork and painted metalic green, and Bertone arranged for a private showing at a villa in Turin, attended by the hierachy of the Italian automotive industry. It was a special day, and Bertone, was proudly pictured with the car on that occasion.
There followed a globe-trotting schedule of International Motor Shows -
August 1969 — Shown in Detroit, Michigan
October 1969 — Shown in Montreal, Canada
November 1969 — Shown in Anaheim, California
January 1970 — Shown in Detroit, Michigan
January 1970 — Shown in Montreal, Canada
February 1970 — Shown in London, England and featured on BBC TV
April 1970 — Shown in Palmerton, Pennsylvania
July 1970 — Shown in Tokyo, Japan
August 1970 — Shown in Sydney, Australia
November 1970 — Shown in Paris, France
After a final showing at the 1978 Detroit Motor Show, in February of 1981, Radtke donated the car to the Boston Museum of Transportation for an estimated $200,000 tax deduction. In the mid-1980s, it was refurbished and its interior upholstery replaced.
In 1989, it was purchased by the Portman group, and has spent its life since then shuttling from auction house to temporary owner, likely because its full history and significance is unknown by most. Auctioned off soon thereafter, it spent a number of years in Japanese collection. In 2002 it returned to the USA for a brief sojourn, before finding another home with a Ferrari collector in France.
In December 2006, the priceless Miura Roadster was finally purchased by a New York property developer who, at huge cost, has had the car returned to its original 1968 Salon de L’Automobile Bruxelles specification. The conversion, by the Bobileff Motorcar Company, was completed in late August 2008.
