Carrozzeria Bertone (1912-2014) was an Italian automobile company which specialised in coachbuilding and car design and manufacturing. The company designed cars for many well-known car manufacturers including Alfa Romeo, Aston Martin, Citroen, Ferrari, Fiat, Lancia, Lamborghini, Mercedes Benz, Opel and Volvo, among others.

The business was founded by Giovanni Bertone (1884-1972) in 1912 and began its life as a carriage manufacturing company based in Turin. The outbreak of WW I triggered a crisis in the emerging Italian industrial sector. This greatly affected Giovanni Bertone who was forced to temporarily close his company. After the war ended he restarted the business and expanded its activities by focusing on the automotive sector. By the 1920s, Bertone had established solid partnerships with almost all of the key automobile manufacturers of the time.

In 1950 Giovanni Bertone’s son Giuseppe Bertone (1914-1997), more commonly known by the nickname Nuccio, took control of the company. Under Nuccio Bertone’s direction the company was gradually modernised and transformed into an internationally renowned industrial enterprise specialising in innovative car design and manufacture of cars in small series. Bertone was involved in running the company until his death in 1997 whereupon his widow Lilli Bertone took control. In 2007 and 2008 the company faced financial difficulties leading it to sell its manufacturing plant to Fiat in 2009. In 2014 the company was declared bankrupt and ceased designing and manufacturing cars.

Lancia is an Italian automobile manufacturer that was founded in Turin in 1906 by Fiat racing driver Vincenzo Lancia and his friend Claudio Fogolin. The company is renowned in the automotive industry for introducing cars with technological innovations.

This is a design for the Lancia Stratos HF; a sports and rally car manufactured by Lancia and designed by Marcello Gandini for Carrozzeria Bertone. The car is particularly significant to the history of rally racing as it was the first rally car to be designed from scratch. Previously rally cars had been adapted from large scale production models.

In the late 1960s Lancia was looking to develop a rally car to replace their aging Fulvia model. Recognising the opportunity Nuccio Bertone took the running gear from his friend’s Fulvia Coupé and tasked Marcello Gandini with developing a drivable concept car that would win Lancia’s business. Gandini created the Stratos Zero; a radical concept car with a futuristic design. The car made such an impression when Bertone presented it to Lancia that they agreed to work with them to develop a new rally car that would build on Gandini’s designs for the Stratos Zero.

In 1971, a year after the Stratos Zero was presented to Lancia, the Lancia Stratos HF prototype was shown at the Turin Auto Show. The bright orange prototype was lightweight with a futuristic wedge-shaped body and a distinctive crescent-shaped wraparound front windscreen. This streamline design along with a 192 horsepower engine meant that the car could run from 0 to 60 mph in less than five seconds making it a very successful rally car. In fact the Stratos went on to win three World Championships in 1974, 1975 and 1976.