BERTONE’S BATS
In art terms, a triptych is a three-panel piece, usually a painting on separate canvases that are linked by a common theme or treatment and designed to be viewed together.
There’s no real parallel in automotive terms. Or at least there wasn’t until three distinct, and distinctly connected examples of Italian post-war automotive styling were gathered together in the late 1980s.
More recently, these three extreme creations for offered for sale – as a trio – for the first time.
NEW YORK GALLERY
Given the cars you see here are regarded as art, it was fitting that they were offered in a ‘Contemporary Art Evening Auction,’ presented by RM Sotheby’s in New York on 28 October.
The three cars were created across a three-year period by Carrozzeria Bertone, to commission from Alfa Romeo, to explore the application of aerodynamics in automobile design.
Alfa Romeo were no strangers to such experiments at the time, having commissioned the C52 ‘Disco Volante’ (‘Flying Saucer’) in 1952 to study the effect of aerodynamics. While the chassis and running gear of the C52 was taken from Alfa’s conventional 1900 model, the body, by Carrozzeria Touring, was anything but conventional, with a rounded shape, oval cross section and faired-in undertray, all designed to
