By Antti Kautonen
The third Bertone piece today is a solid gold effort, again with Chevrolet mechanicals. The 1990 Nivola features the ZR1 powerplant, but instead of a simpler rebodying effort of a Corvette structure, the car has been re-engineered into a mid-engined configuration.
It’s also apparently been shot at the same gravel pit where Bertone has gone to photograph a number of previous concept cars.
The golden wonder is also credited to Marc Deschamps. It has that unmistakable 1990s swoopiness about it, and imagining it with a roaring V8 engine is more difficult to comprehend than electric power. The car should rather only emit a faint electronic buzz.
The Nuccio Bertone Seal of Approval.
The way the taillights gleam out of the tail section crevice is definitely exciting.
In this side shot the car seems to have its pop-ups in the open position, but I couldn’t procure a frontal shot with them up.
Despite the oh-so-’90s light blue hue of the leather, the interior does feel a little bit lacking. Perhaps it’s the plasticky dashboard, that looks like it would’ve suited an early-’90s Opel concept better. Especially the no-frills Alpine cassette deck looks cheap.
And to recap, in this naked construction shot you can see the ZR1 engine peeking from amidships.
[Images: Bertone via carstyling.ru]
Bradley Brownell
Man, you could lose so much cruft inside those seats.
Magnificent. You can really see Bertone working through a lot of their trademark design motifs. Just a tad long in the flanks, and perhaps a tad too much pucker in that beltline tuck. The interior looks like the design team was informed that the interior would be shown and photographed about one week before their shipping date. Otherwise, they would certainly have baked in a lot more spaceship.
Gorgeous outside. Awful inside.
Heck, that could be a series of feature articles.
If I didn't know any better, that looks a lot like 80's Pontiac interiors.
I don't know, my first reaction was that of a Fiero lurking in the exterior details.
I wonder where this is now? Looks really cool.
I think that I prefer the Ramarro.
There is one common point to all these Bertone concepts, non round wheel arches/cutouts. After the….what?..Audi TT? New Beetle? all cars seemed to have round wheel arches that just followed the wheel shape. These add dynanism and movement to the whole design–much more interesting.
One of my favourite concept vehicles of all time…not the favourite, but in the top 7:
<img src="http://files.conceptcarz.com/img/Ford/ford_probe_IV_Concept-1983-01.jpg" width="400">
1983 Ford Probe IV. Had an absurdly low Cd.
Looks like a loaf of dough being slowly cut by a piece of string.
Please, enough already with bertone concepts. They invariably..sucked. They're all slab-sided wedges with limited visual interest and NO EXCITEMENT. Period. Move on.
Thanks.