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Bertone is to be sold next week as court-ordered bankruptcy proceedings wind up the legendary Italian automotive design house.

Bertone - the carrozzeria behind the likes of the Lamborghini Miura and Countach, the Alfa GTV, and Fiats like the Dino and X1/9 - was declared bankrupt last year. The full story of the demise of this great design house is a desperately sad, internecine disaster, so convoluted that it really can’t be told here.

Now the courts in Milan have ordered the assets of the bankrupt ‘Bertone Cento’ company be sold at an online auction next week. Among these is the Bertone brand itself, which the auctioneer values at £2.2 million.

Those with pockets deep enough will snag not only the Bertone brand but with it a motley collection of one-off prototypes and design studies that form the Bertone museum in Italy.

Will be very interesting to see where it goes. The end of an era or the beginning of a new one?

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