Bertone

Giovanni Bertone opened a workshop for horse-drawn carriages in Turin in 1912. The business moved toward automobiles during the 1920s; a Lancia Artena design followed in 1932, and Giovanni’s son Nuccio joined in 1933.^[1]

Under the Bertone banner, Franco Scaglione shaped the Alfa Romeo BAT studies and Marcello Gandini designed the Lamborghini Miura. These projects brought individual designers together with the Turin coachbuilder and major carmakers.^[1]

The historic house also worked beyond one-off design studies. The Fiat 850 Spider belongs to Bertone's 1960s work; the firm later handled production, the sales network and after-sales service for the Fiat X1/9.^[1]

The Bertone marque was revived under Mauro and Jean-Franck Ricci in 2020–22. The current website is operated by BERTONE SA, registered in Luxembourg, and presents the vehicles developed in this recent chapter.^[1,2]

The GB110 was unveiled in December 2022. In November 2024 Bertone introduced the Classic Line’s Runabout, revisiting a concept first shown in 1969. Together, the two cars give the renewed marque distinct contemporary and heritage-led directions.^[1,3]

Lamborghini Miura joins a carmaker, the Bertone house and designer Marcello Gandini. The Alfa Romeo BAT studies join Alfa Romeo, Bertone and Franco Scaglione. Keeping those names at their own levels makes the collaborations easier to follow: a marque identifies the car’s context, a coachbuilder the design house, and a named designer the individual author credited within that house.^[1]

Bertone’s Fiat X1/9 role went further into production, the sales network and after-sales assistance. That is another kind of involvement from an experimental design study. When comparing a BAT, Miura and X1/9, ask both who drew the form and what the company actually delivered. The answer changes the meaning of a small Bertone signature on a much larger automotive story.^[1]