Fiat reportedly to axe Bertone name if bid accepted

When you're dealing with a company as established and reputed as Bertone, the whole is much more than the sum of its parts. Apparently Fiat feels otherwise, as the rapidly expanding Italian auto giant eyes its latest target strictly for its assets.

According to a statement supposedly issued from the company's press office, if Fiat succeeds in its bid to acquire Bertone's contract manufacturing operations – currently in receivership following bankruptcy proceedings – it will not use the Bertone name and only absorb its Grugliasco assembly plant, along with its skilled workforce, into its corporate structure. Any inference from the Bertone takeover applied to Fiat's acquisition of Chrysler would of course be pure speculation, but the move would surely be good news for the recently separated Stile Bertone design studio responsible for the Mantide concept.

[Source: Autocar]