Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione Bertone Pandion - 2010

The Alfa Romeo Pandion is a concept car created by the Italian Bertone body shop to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the Italian car manufacturer Alfa Romeo. The concept, based on the Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione, was presented at the 2010 Geneva Motor Show. The car is a marching prototype that, as often happens in concepts, is not only an exercise in style, but contains many concepts, both of mobility and ergonomics, and technological research, in this case aimed at lightness. Pandion, after the Bertone Mantide, is the second result of the corporate revival of the Turin body shop; the Alfa Romeo style center and the Alfa Romeo itself also made a significant contribution to its construction. The project is still attributed to Mike Robinson. The request was expressly requested by Alfa Romeo to Bertone in September 2009, initiating a project collaboration. The Pandion is a type of sports car with a coupe-type body and a passenger compartment designed to hold 4 seats (with habitability of type 2 + 2). The design is inspired by the raptor Pandion haliaetus, a osprey also present in Italy, from which it takes its name. The front, with very clean lines, is basically characterized by a single profile; this design is drawn from a void carved in the front itself (the stylistic concept recalls the housing of the lights of the Alfa 159 / Brera which in turn take up the Brera concept of Italdesign). Here, too, the optical groups are incorporated, on the Pandion concept, however, this void continues even at the center of the front, incorporating the shield, and then descends and reaches the lower end of the bumper. The rear is fragmented into many small pieces of material that give the idea that the car dematerializes due to the speed. These elements, of different materials, give a feeling of lightness and dynamism, some of these are transparent, allowing the light of the directional devices and the rear lights to cross them. Most likely the visual effect of the rear of the car also reminds of the feathers of a bird's body. The car's doors are very particular, suggestive and characteristic. The Bertone has focused a lot on their form and above all on their opening, so much so that also the logo of the same car takes them explicitly. Their shape incorporates practically the whole side of the car and by rotating on a pin located at the rear end of the car body, they open upwards. The shape, with "spread wings" reminds precisely the wings of the bird of prey from which it derives, swooping during an attack. The interiors, clearly visible even when the car is closed because both the roof and the doors are equipped with very large glass areas, are characterized by a central tunnel almost entirely in white composite material, in sharp contrast with the black of the instrumentation and the dashboard and the water green of the seats. The seats have the characteristic of being totally back-illuminated in an extremely reduced thickness thanks to a new technology called reLIGHT-fabric bulb. The whole interior, as indeed the whole car, is entirely aimed at a search for lightness, with games of full and empty spaces where the latter clearly prevail, as to underline the high mechanical properties of the materials used and the high technology present in the design of the car body. The engine is composed of an 8-cylinder engine with 4,691 cm³ arranged to deliver up to 450 hp. This engine is the same as the Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione. The car was presented out of competition, as "guest of the jury" at the 2010 edition of the Pebble Beach elegance competition, an edition dedicated to 100 years Alfa Romeo, where the brand was a guest of honor. At the international car show in Beijing he won the "Most beautiful car of the show" award. The designer and the car were at the center of an important debate regarding automotive design in Italy and in the world at the Supercardesign event held in Bobbio, Piacenza, on May 3, 2010. The front of the Pandion is very similar to that of another automotive concept, namely the "EYE" concept created by students of the European Design Institute (IED) of Turin for the US company Tesla Motors. This is no coincidence, in fact the EYE concept is a work developed by the Master in Advanced Design for Transportation, branch of the IED of Turin that deals with the automotive sector, and the person responsible for this course of study is Mike Robinson, the creator of the Pandion. Furthermore the project coordinators of the EYE concept are Luca Borgogno and Andrea Militello, respectively senior designer of Pininfarina and FIAT (the latter owner of Alfa Romeo). At the 2010 Supercardesign a singular comic strip designed by Fabio Mori, with Roberto Bernocco on the screenplay, was dedicated to the Alfa Romeo Pandion.