The company is also distinguished for giving starts to design stars like Marcello Gandini and Giorgetto Giugiaro, who each followed Franco Scaglione, designer of the BAT's, as the top designers at Bertone.
Concepts from Italy's carrozzeria are often the highlights of the Geneva auto show. Last year, Bertone showed a design study for Fiat called the Barchetta. This year, Zagato showed a concept called the Bentley GTZ, and Pininfarina offered one called the Sintesi.
But revered coachbuilders like Ghia and Touring are now gone, and survivors like Zagato, Pininfarina and Italdesign-Giugiaro are feeling extreme pressure. The carrozzeria declined as the number of aristocrats, plutocrats and movie stars willing to pay for bespoke or limited-production bodies declined. Most moved from operating as the automotive versions of skilled tailors to becoming consultants on engineering and production, and serving as small-volume manufacturers. Bertone, for instance, produced 2,000 copies of the limited edition Mini GT through 2006.
Against a backdrop of court actions among Lilli Bertone, the widow of Nuccio Bertone, and their daughters, the new BAT can be viewed as either a last gasp of the coachbuilders or a defiant assertion of their intent to survive.
Wardle of Art Center College points out that the coachbuilders have been lagging for years, as automakers turn inward for design. Over the years, coachbuilders have produced some of the most esteemed designs in the history of the automobile, but today they are being run by second- or third-generation members of their founder's families or outsiders, "who do not have the same vision, talent or focus as their progenitors," he said.
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