BERLINETTA 60S: EXCEPTIONAL ITALIAN COUPES OF THE SIXTIES
Following on from the authors’ similar book on Italian coupés of the 1950s, this superbly produced book is another photographic portfolio of dramatic, sexy, and/or elegant coachwork by Italian carrozzerie on a wide range of chassis.
Coachbuilding was changing in the 1960s, as fewer cars were built in a way that allowed for custom-built bodies to be created. Also, more cars were being developed with rear-mounted or mid-mounted engines, no doubt posing some further challenges for those clothing the chassis. Nonetheless, companies such as Pininfarina, Italdesign, Bertone, and lesser lights such as Sibona-bassano and Corna presented many masterpieces during the decade. A few of the cars featured in the book entered limited production, but most were created in tiny numbers or as one-offs. Within these 320 large pages are features on 36 different cars. Each gets
a page of text plus four–eight pages of superb photos — more than 440 of them.
Of course, with beauty being in the eye of the beholder, I wasn’t attracted to every single car in the book — Lombardi’s 1968 Abarth Scorpione doesn’t appeal, for instance. However, the vast majority of them are superb. It’s there in the overall shape and flow of the bodywork as well as in many of the fine details — perhaps the way instruments are laid out or delicate swage lines.
This is a book to which you can keep returning to enjoy cars such as Italdesign’s Bizzarrini Manta, the Alfa Romeo 2600SZ by Zagato and the Lamborghini Marzal with its all-encompassing glass. The book even includes the Ferrari 250GT, penned by Giugiaro and constructed by Bertone in 1962 — to my mind the most beautiful car ever created! Towards the end of the decade, more ‘angular’ shapes began to be introduced, with Bertone’s Alfa Romeo Carabo from ’68 perhaps being the most extreme example here.
The book, which comes in a sturdy slipcase, ends with background notes on each of the designers and carrozzerie featured. When combined with the quality for which the Dalton Watson imprint is renowned, this is one of those rare books that I didn’t want to get to the end of!