SIX LEGENDARY BERTONE CONCEPTS TO BE AUCTIONED BY BANKRUPTCY COURT

By Luca Ciferri, Automotive News - Six concept cars created by Italian design house Bertone for Lamborghini, Lancia and Chevrolet will be auctioned next month on the orders of a bankruptcy court.

Three of the cars represent milestones of Italian design and are expected to be sold for high amounts. Bids of between 1 million and 1.8 million euros are being asked for:

• The 1967 gull-winged Lamborghini Marzal prototype, which was driven by Prince Ranieri and Princess Grace at the start of 1967 Monaco Grand Prix. The car later was built as the Espada.


• The mid-engined Lancia Stratos HF Zero. The car went into production as the Lancia Stratos, a car that dominated the World Rally Championships in the 1970s.

Both cars were designed by Italian car designer Marcello Gandini, who worked at Bertone from 1965 to 1980.

The third milestone car is the Chevrolet Testudo, created by Giorgetto Giugiaro. The concept has a transparent one-piece windscreen and roof and was driven by Giugiaro from Turin to its debut at the 1973 Geneva auto show. Bids between 500,000 euros and 800,000 euros are being sought for the car.

The other three concepts have less historical relevance and so have lower starting prices.

The sale comes after the Bertone Group went into a court-supervised liquidation in 2008.

Fita S.p.A. bought Bertone's contract manufacturing plant in 2009. The factory is scheduled to resume production at the end of 2012, building midsized and large sedans for Maserati.

Lilli Bertone, the widow of company founder Nuccio Bertone, saved the Stile Bertone design company from bankruptcy and in 2009 bought back the Bertone trademark and historical files for 3.5 million euros.

She also made a 4.56 million euros offer for the Bertone Group museum and its 90 cars but the bankruptcy court asked for 6 million euros.

Lilli Bertone bought 84 of the museum's concept cars at their book value of 2.4 million euros. The court is selling off the remaining six cars and RM Auctions, a British auction house that specializes in high-end automobile auctions, will auction the cars at the Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Este in Como, Italy, on May 21.