Rallying
from the brink of bankruptcy, Italy's oldest
car-design company is racking up new contracts and
looking to open an office in Detroit for the first
time in its 98-year history.
Stile
Bertone, which created landmark designs like the
Lamborghini Miura and Countach, Fiat Dino, Volvo 780
and Citro en BX, is back on its feet and hungry to
grow, Roland Martin, Bertone's business development
director, told me recently.
"At
the beginning of 2008, it looked like Stile Bertone
would not survive," Martin told me as we sat a
few feet from the Bertone-built BAT 11 concept car,
one of the stars at the Meadow Brook Concours
d'Elegance.
"The
significance of the BAT 11 was to show people that
Bertone is still alive," Martin said. The
dramatic green sport coupe was inspired by Traverse
City dentist Gary Kaberle, who had owned another
Bertone classic, the BAT 9, for decades.
Creditors
nearly turned the lights off on Bertone last winter.
The design business was solvent, but a subsidiary that
assembled cars for automakers hemorrhaged money,
threatening to take the whole company down with it.
Told to
stop work on the BAT 11 to save money, a handful of
designers defied orders, finished the car and sneaked
it to a brief appearance before the Geneva auto show
in Switzerland in March.
The car
was a hit, generating positive headlines for a company
that had been mired in a soap opera of family intrigue
and financial woe.
Italian
courts separated Stile Bertone from the crumbling
assembly business, creating a standalone design
business. The Bertone family still owns it, but a
professional management team runs the business.
"We
are rebuilding," said Martin, who joined Bertone
from fellow Italian design house Giugiaro in June.
"We're opening an office in China now and we want
to open them in the United States and India."
Bertone
has about 20 design projects going, including work for
automakers in Europe and China and designing interiors
of luxury yachts, business jets and helicopters.
The
biggest jobs are in China, where Bertone is taking
several new passenger cars from the initial design
stage all the way to building running models, Martin
said.
"We
don't have any projects in the United States,"
Martin said, although Bertone has done a lot of work
for GM's Opel brand in Europe. "We want to change
that. This is the biggest market for cars in the
world, and it will remain so for a long time. We need
a presence in Detroit to participate here," said
Martin, who lived in Rochester for several years when
he worked for supplier Magna.
"You
have to have an office here where your clients can
come and walk around models of your design
proposals," he said. "We're working on it.
We want this operation set up as soon as
possible."
It
would be a small office, with a small staff for sales,
design and model-making. Bertone wants a partner to
share space and costs - ideally, a company with an
existing facility that does design and engineering and
does not compete directly with Bertone.
The
local automakers all have full design staffs, of
course, but it's not unusual for outside studios to be
hired to provide a fresh viewpoint.
"We
are usually commissioned to do designs in competition
with a company's internal studios," Martin said.
"It's a creative competition."
The BAT
11 may yet play another role in Bertone's rebirth.
The
company may build 25 to 50 running versions of the
graceful coupe. It's part of a plan to produce very
small runs of historic designs from the company's past
and present.
Bertone
won't risk gearing up for the production volumes of
thousands of cars that got its assembly business in
hock, Martin said.
"They
would be custom-built vehicles, and we would only do
it if we sell them before we begin production,"
he said.
"We're
not going to build our future on speculation."