Back in 2015, the Italian design firm Bertone took the wraps off its Vision GT project. Radical didn’t even begin to describe the out-of-this-world concept. But sadly, we never got the chance to see the car outside of some renderings.
The history of Bertone is a rocky one. For years, it turned out fantastic cars like the Lancia Stratos and Lamborghini Miura. After the turn of the century though, the Italian company started facing numerous problems. This all came to a head in 2014 when the company declared bankruptcy.
The company still sort-of lives on today under the name Bertone Designs. But, unlike its ancestor, it focuses its attention on industrial design instead of automotive creations.
For one Bertone designer though, cars were still on his mind.
Giulio Partisani, the original creator for the Vision GT concept, made a “Throwback Thursday” post on Instagram this week. In it, he described how he continued to work on the Vision GT concept even after the company went bankrupt:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bi2HKuJFQbY/
Regardless of what you thought about the Bertone Vision GT three years ago, this is pretty inspiring. It also shows a commitment to both the Bertone design philosophy and to Gran Turismo.
When GTPlanet talked to Kazunori Yamauchi at the 2015 Goodwood Festival of Speed, we asked him about the car coming to Gran Turismo. Unfortunately, at the time he wasn’t convinced it would ever come to the game:
GTPlanet: What’s the current status of the Bertone VGT car?
Yamauchi: The company has gone now, so it’s really difficult. It’s really unfortunate – we had high expectations from the design.
Today, we think that sentiment is probably still true. As much as we’d like to see something wild and crazy like the Bertone Vision GT make its way into GT Sport, it’s probably not in the cards.
It’s still cool to see this design pop up years later though.
Thanks to Lee x sensai for the tip!
