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Bertone fills for bankruptcy protection
By Yoann Besnard on 30 November 2007 | 
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Italian coachbuilders are in the doldrums. After Pininfarini, which is looking for more manufacturing contracts, Bertone announced that it was asking for a 'concardo preventivo' equivalent to a bankruptcy protection and the Italian government to pay its 1,300 employees.
Like Pininfarina, Bertone suffers from a unpredictable and highly volatile manufacturing business and to date, Bertone has no contract despite having the capacity to build up to 70,000 cars a year. It's not that Bertone rested on laurels, but some planned contracts collapsed: TVR, Fiat refusing to build the Suagnà... \
Nevertheless, Bertone have some hopes with Massimo Di Risio, owner of a large dealer network in Italy. Indeed, the Italian CEO plans to sell its own small SUV on the Italian market. Designed in Italy, the SUV will have its platform and body built in China by Gonow. The car will be imported in Italy where it will receive a Fiat Multijet engine. Bertone is in the running for the job of producing 12,000 units per year while it needs to build 30,000 cars to break even. Let's hope the future will be better for the coachbuilder.
