| For this year's 81st Geneva Motor Show Stile Bertone will present a Jaguar-based luxury sedan concept featuring a hybrid powertrain which is to be called the B 99 to celebrate the occasion of the Italian design house's 99th anniversary. Shorn of its failed contract manufacturing arm, Carrozzeria Bertone, which has been sold to Fiat, and with Nuccio's widow Lilli Bertone now firmly back behind the wheel, the famous Turinese company is firmly back on the automotive radar. Last year it presented the Pandion, a futuristic homage to Alfa Romeo's centenary, while this year Bertone is returning to the scene of another marque where it has achieved much acclaim in the past, Jaguar. According to Bertone: "The B 99 projects Jaguar's classic style into the future with refined Bertone elegance, exploring a fascinating new form language with sleek lines and smooth volumes." The project was led by Bertone Design Director Mike Robinson. The result of the project is a compact, four-door sedan (4.5 m long, 1.35 m tall, and 1.95 m wide) that fits into D-segment, thus projecting Bertone's take on a potential replacement for the X-Type model. Starting with a classic three-volume architecture, Bertone designers have shaped what they say is "a taut, muscular body with strong character, entirely constructed with handmade aluminum panels in true Italian coachbuilder tradition. "The unique personality of the luxury sports sedan is emphasised by the sophisticated minimalism outside and in, with the ... |
