Corvette Based Supercar Fails to Save Famous Automaker
The Bertone Mantide, a Corvette-based supercar, was the Italian design house’s last masterpiece—lightweight, aerodynamic, and one-of-a-kind.
Stile Bertone is one of Italy's oldest automotive design houses, founded by Giovanni Bertone in Turin in 1912. The company remained family-owned until its bankruptcy in 2014, ultimately falling victim to the global financial crisis and changing industry landscape. As automakers began to innovate, independent studios like Bertone—once the creative center of Italian car culture—lost the commissions that had sustained them for generations.
Over the past decades, Bertone has created some of the most iconic car designs of all time, such as the Lamborghini Miura, often called the world's first true supercar, and the wedge-shaped Lancia Stratos HF. Coincidentally, both designs were created by the immensely talented Marcello Gandini during his tenure at the studio. Although Bertone's last official design was the 2012 Nuccio concept—named after Giovanni's son and created to commemorate the company's centennial—it was another car, the Mantide, based on the Chevrolet Corvette, that would become the company's last road-going masterpiece. Unfortunately, only one example was built. That's its story.
In the mid-2000s, American designer Jason Castriota was making a name for himself designing cars for fellow Italian design house Pininfarina, the most famous of which was the P4/5, based on Pininfarina's Ferrari Enzo, commissioned by James Glickenhaus before he started his own car company and race team of the same name.
Castriota left Pininfarina in the fall of 2008 with the intention of starting his own design company, but then, in his own words, Bertone made him an offer he couldn't refuse, and he immediately signed on as the company's new design chief.
His first task was to create a new supercar based on the chassis of the Chevrolet Corvette. This was no ordinary Corvette, but the fastest car at the time and still one of the fastest today—the C6 Corvette ZR1. Castriota's goal was to create a striking design that would elevate the already highly capable carmaker's performance. Recall that the C6 ZR1 lapped the Nürburgring in 2011 in a time of just 7:19.63, nearly equaling the performance of Porsche's 911 GT2 RS at the time.
Bertone's reconstruction of the car, later dubbed the Mantide, Italian for mantis, was first showcased at Auto Shanghai 2009. The car looked nothing like the C6 ZR1 on which it was based, and its performance was significantly improved due to reduced weight and improved aerodynamics. The body was made almost entirely of carbon fiber, while some structural parts were replaced with magnesium, helping to shave approximately 250 pounds from the ZR1's 3,350-pound weight. Meanwhile, the new aerodynamically shaped body provided the Mantide with 25 percent less drag and 30 percent more downforce than the donor car. Later tests in Nardo confirmed a 0-60 mph time of 3.2 seconds and a top speed of 218 mph.
In a 2014 interview with Speedhunters, Castriota revealed that car collector Dan Watkins – a McLaren F1 owner and amateur racer – was the one who commissioned the Mantide. Castriota also explained that Bertone initially considered building up to 10 models, with Watkins' permission, but Watkins later changed his mind and wanted only his model. More interesting? Castriota originally wanted the Mantide painted pearl white and run on the chassis of an Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione. However, Bertone insisted the car be painted red.
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