Bertone B99 Jaguar NOT for Jaguar. Perhaps Lamborghini will be interested?

Jaguar has proclaimed the Bertone B99 – Bertone’s take on a new small Jaguar – as ‘Not for them’. Perhaps it could become a Lamborghini?

We thought we were in a minority of one when we proclaimed the Bertone B99 – Bertone’s take on a new Small Jaguar – to be the wrong direction for Jaguar.

We couldn’t conceive why a struggling Italian design firm like Bertone would take a punt on designing a new Jaguar, so we assumed that Jaguar must have quietly commissioned it.

Otherwise Bertone would have to be a bit barking to try and usurp Jaguar’s design team; a design team with as sure a touch as any in the industry.

Although many proclaimed the B99 as exactly how a new small Jaguar should look, we declared it a pastiche of the past; a design with every ‘look back and lust’ trait Jaguar has worked so hard to escape.

So it’s with relief that Jaguar are now distancing themselves from Bertone’s efforts. Adrian Hallmark – Jaguar’s Global Brand Director – has told Automotive News:

“It is not our concept. We appreciate the fact that Jaguar is interesting enough for people to do a concept around. It’s not that we are offended by it, or against it–it is just not for us.”

So what can Bertone now do with a design Jaguar don’t want? Well, perhaps they can do what they did with another Jaguar Concept they created back in the ’60s – the Bertone Pirana.

The Bertone Pirana was actually commissioned by the Daily Telegraph (they were more profitable in those days) for the 1967 Earls Court Motor Show as the ‘Ideal Car’, and was a re-bodied Jaguar E-Type.

The design was of no interest to Jaguar, but it did go on to make a name for itself as the Lamborghini Estoque of the ’60s and ’70s.

Yes, the Jaguar Bertone Pirana came to life as the Lamborghini Espada.