Early years Giovanni Bertone started a carriage manufacturing business in
Turin, Italy, at the age of 28. Along with three workers, he built
horse-drawn vehicles. In 1914, Bertone's second son,
Giuseppe, nicknamed "Nuccio", was born. The outbreak of the
First World War forced Giovanni Bertone to close his company. In 1920, a new plant was opened near the
Monginevro 119 in Turin. Twenty people were on the payroll. One year later, a contract on a
torpedo-styled body based on the SPA 23S
chassis was signed by the company. Then, the
FIAT "501 Sport Siluro Corsa" was designed. During the 1920s, Giovanni Bertone began doing bodywork on the Fast, Chiribiri, Aurea, SCAT, and Diatto chassis.
Vincenzo Lancia nicknamed him "Bertunot"; he commissioned Bertone to create cars for the "limited series". Giovanni Bertone produced torpedo and saloon bodies for
FIAT and
Lancia and for
Itala,
Diatto, and
SPA. Alongside sports models like the 1928 Ansaldo 6BS, Giovanni Bertone also designed cars like the
Fiat 505 limousine and the
Itala 51S, both in 1924. He later designed the Lancia Lambda VIII Series in 1928. In 1932, Giovanni designed the
Lancia Artena, which was produced until 1936. In 1933, Nuccio Bertone officially began working in his father's company. The company moved to Corso Peschiera 225. Gruppo Bertone now had fifty members of staff. In 1934, Bertone created the Fiat 527S Ardita 2500. With the outbreak of the
Second World War, Bertone reacted to the crisis by turning to manufacturing military vehicles. The company created vehicles such as the Bertone ambulance on a Lancia Artena base. The chassis
Fiat 2800 cabriolet was manufactured; it was built on commission for race driver and motoring journalist
Giovanni Lurani Cernuschi. Nuccio Bertone also created cars like the
Lancia Aprilia Cabriolet, the Fiat 1100 Stanguellini racing car, and the
Berlinetta Aerodinamica Tecnica (BAT) concept cars. In 1956, they produced the
Abarth 750 Record; it was built on a Fiat 600 chassis and tested on the
high-speed track at
Monza. Abarth 750 Record sets ten world records, including doing at an average of 156.36 km/h and covering 10,125.26 km in 72 hours. In 1957, the company expanded to start the production of the
NSU Sport Prinz. Construction work began in
Grugliasco for a new plant that became operative in 1959 with a workforce of 550. At the end of the 1950s, Bertone created the
Giulietta Sprint Speciale, the
Aston Martin DB2/4, and the
Maserati 3500 GT. The
Iso Rivolta GT 300, the
Iso Rivolta GT 340, and the
Iso Grifo were also created in the 1960s. Giorgetto Giugiaro designed a prototype cabriolet of the latter and a racing version known as the A3C. The Grifo years were also the years of the
Chevrolet Testudo, driven personally by Nuccio Bertone to the
Geneva Motor Show in 1963. The following year, they created the
Alfa Romeo Canguro, followed in 1965 by the
Alfa Romeo Giulia GT. In 1965, Bertone launched the
Fiat 850 Spider. The commercial success of this model led Nuccio Bertone to increase the company's production capacity to 120 units per day. Between 1965 and 1972, nearly 140,000 were produced, the great majority of which were sold in the United States. With the Fiat 850, the company increased its production volumes, from 13,000 units produced in 1966 to nearly 30,000 in 1968. Bertone underwent a major restructuring process. By then, the Bertone workforce had dropped to roughly 300 people, mainly engineers and designers. The financial situation continued, prompting Bertone to sell off some of its concept cars in 2011. After having ceased trading because of financial difficulties, Bertone, on 18 March 2014, They also formed a partnership with
Citroën, but since the 2013 acquisition of the name, a car prototype or series was never made. In June 2016, the Bertone brand was acquired for more than by AKKA Technologies, an engineering company. The rights to use the brand, however, were shared with Bertone Design which does not have the authorization to use it in the automotive field. Starting from November 2018, AKKA Technologies sold the license to use the Bertone brand in the electric automotive sector to Flymove Holding Limited UK, which in May 2019 proceeded with the definitive purchase of the brand for all applications and sectors. They relaunched Bertone through the presentation of new models of electric cars designed by Carlos Arroyo Turon (former Bertone Designer) and which use the battery swap system. The AKKA Technologies group subsequently sold the Bertone brand to Ideactive, a company owned by Mauro and Jean-Franck Ricci. In 2022, the two Ricci brothers revived the Bertone brand. The first in a series of limited edition vehicles, the GB110, was launched in December 2022. In June 2024, the Bertone GB110 was publicly unveiled at
Top Marques Monaco. ==Design and production activity==