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Bertone goes bust

The famous Italian coachbuilder and designer Bertone may be on its deathbed. The company that penned the beautiful shape of the Lamborghini Miura has been facing financial hardships for months, and Autocar is reporting that the Turin, Italy firm has just declared bankruptcy. The last we heard from Bertone, it was showing the Jet 2+2 station wagon based on an Aston Martin Rapide at the 2013 Geneva Motor Show. The Turin-based carrozzeria became famous for its wild designs like the BMW Spicup concept, Lancia Stratos and the initial shape of the Lamborghini Countach. In recent years, it had been limited to creating mostly one-off vehicles. The company has slowly been shrinking recently. It sold its small factory to Fiat a few years go and let go of 165 employees and 10 interns in December. Bertone has been shopping itself in hopes of finding a new owner. According to PistonHeads, even with the money problems, the business generated 20-million euros ($27.9 million) in revenue in 2013 and has been working on projects in China. A Turkish firm was rumored to be interested in buying it for just $2.7 million, and GT Spirit claims that there are also seven Italian companies potentially interested in purchasing it. Bertone has a long and proud automotive history, and it wouldn't be surprising if it were bought just for the value of the brand – perhaps we haven't seen the last of its stylized B logo. Featured Gallery Bertone Jet 2+2: Geneva 2013 View 10 Photos News Source: Autocar via Pistonheads, GTSpiritImage Credit: Copyright 2014 Drew Phillips / AOL Design/Style Hirings/Firings/Layoffs Plants/Manufacturing BMW Lamborghini Lancia Concept Cars Luxury Special and Limited Editions Performance Classics bertone lamborghini miura Lamborghini Countach

Lamborghini Urraco ownership is traumatic but awesome

Gene Ondrusek and his 1975 Lamborghini Urraco have a relationship forged in heartache. He bought the car on a whim in 1987 and had barely driven it when the timing belt snapped thanks to a bad previous engine rebuild. With the interior already a wreck, Ondrusek set off on a restoration that would take years to get the Lamborghini back together.
All of that time arm-deep in the car's mechanicals has turned Ondrusek into a pretty persnickety owner. Passengers have to remove their shoes before getting in, and he has a mat to protect the carpet on the driver's side. However, despite his fastidious temperament, this Urraco isn't a garage queen and gets driven often.
Ondrusek doesn't exactly make the Urraco sound like an unmitigated joy behind the wheel, either. The seating position forces the driver to sit at an angle, and with no power brakes or power steering, the wedge-shaped coupe is not exactly easy to handle at low speeds. Still, all that time fixing the car has clearly created a strong bond behind man and machine, and we think the wedgy, underappreciated mid-Seventies Marcello Gandini design has held up well. Get a feel for both the car and the owner's connection by watching this latest video from Petrolicious.

BMW Z8, Lambo LM002 sell for $192,500 apiece in Detroit [w/poll]

Think a car are a bad investment? That all depends on what kind of car you're talking about. Because while most cars depreciate in value as soon as you drive them off the lot, others can do even better than hold their value. The cars that appreciate tend to be pretty high-end exotics, but they don't have to be multi-million-dollar classics to command a premium at auction. Just look at the results from RM Sotheby's Motor City sale in Detroit this past weekend. The auction house moved a solid $7.4 million worth of metal, which is pretty impressive when you consider that – unlike events at Lake Como or Pebble Beach – not one of the lots dipped into seven figures. 1930s-era American classics performed the strongest, with Duesenbergs, Packards, Auburns and the like all fetching hundreds of thousands. But what intrigued us most were the European exotics that rounded the top ten results. Amidst the Depression-era American steel were a BMW Z8 from 2001 and a 1988 Lamborghini LM002, each of which sold for an equal $192,500. Hardly the highest figures paid for European exotics this year, but considering how much they were worth just a few years ago, they've proven solid investments. BMW only made 5,703 examples of the Henrik Fisker-designed retro Z8, of which only 2,543 were brought to the United States, where they originally sold for $128,000. The most anyone had ever paid for one at auction, according to Sports Car Market, was $184,082, just this past March at Silverstone. That makes the price achieved this weekend a new record for one of the slinkiest vehicles the Bavarian automaker has ever made, representing an impressive 50-percent increase in value over the course of fourteen years. This particular example – chassis WBAEJ13481AH60437 for those keeping track – is decked out in silver over black, with less than 15,500 miles on the odometer. This Rambo Lambo was produced early in the 301-unit production run, with the sought-after carbureted engine and 32,000 miles on the clock. It didn't set any records at the same price, other examples of the LM002 having traded over the past few years for over $200k. But considering that Sant'Agata originally charged around $120-130k for the SUV when it was new, its selling price still represents about 50-percent appreciation (leaving inflation aside).