Alfa Romeo BAT 11

Information

Gary Kaberle, the previous owner of the Alfa Romeo BAT 9, attended the first memorial of Franco Scaglione at Suvereto in 1997 together with designer Strother McMinn and he had the idea of a fourth BAT, the BAT 11, dedicated to his wife Debra (who died from cancer a couple years before) and the Italian designer. McMinn died ad well yet the project carried on forward through crowdfunding and even Bertone wanted to help by creating a static model on an 8C Competizione platform.

The problem is that Bertone was in a dire financial situation in 2008 and, despite having a stand confirmed for the Geneva Motor Show, Lilly Bertone cancelled the coachbuilder's attendance at the event so even if the car was ready to be unveiled they could issue a press release saying so because officially Bertone would miss the event. A workaround was done by Marie Jeanne Bertone and Centro Stile Bertone engineers to distribute leaflets inviting people to witness the launch of a special car on March 4th at 7pm during a celebration dedicated to automotive designers in the city, thus unofficially debuting the car in front of the participants to the party.

After more than 50 years, there is a new BAT model. The new BAT 11, based on the Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione, shares many styling cues with the classic BAT cars of the 50s. Based on a modified Alfa Romeo 8C platform, the BAT 11 continues some of the distinguishing elements of the original 'Berlinetta Aerodynamica Tecnica' cars designed by Franco Scaglione and developed by Nuccio Bertone.
These include the tapered fins and faired wheels, all in a context where soft propositions are combined with strong, robust lines. The monolithic form has a simple dihedral bodyside section with fins that seem to have been designed as a shawl that wraps around the car beginning from the front fender and extending to the top of the side windows toward the rear.
The front end is strongly tapered to a V-shape with a neat Alfa Romeo shield low down in the lean-forward nose. The V-shaped form continues into the wraparound windshield and continues at the rear, with a center fin butting up to the tapering rear window and a pair of open air extraction slots behind the rear wheels.