Bankruptcy commissioners for Bertone, the Italian design studio, have put six of its greatest concept cars up for sale, including five cars shaped like extreme wedges.
The cars have been consigned to RM Auctions for a May 21 sale at the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este on Lake Como in Italy.
The re-emergence of the low, angular vehicles has reminded collectors and designers of a revolutionary design period of the late 1960s when futuristic, wedgy cars inspired a generation.
“The cultural revolution of 1968 is all inside them,” said Mike Robinson, the American who is Bertone’s current design director.
He said one of the cars — the 1970 Lancia Stratos HF Zero — inspired him to give up his architectural studies and become an auto designer. That car carried further the wedge theme of the 1967 Marzal, also to be auctioned, and a Bertone design that isn’t part of the sale, the 1968 Alfa Romeo Carabo.
The cars for sale also include the 1974 Lamborghini Bravo, the 1978 Lancia Sibilo and the 1980 Lamborghini Athon.
The wedge became a kind of Bertone trademark. It was an obsession of Marcello Gandini, who took over from Giorgetto Giugiaro as Bertone’s head designer in 1965. He created the Lamborghini Miura and then the archetypal supercar, the 1974 Lamborghini Countach.
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