Giovanni Bertone

Giovanni Bertone (born in Mondovì, 1884–1972) was an Italian automotive designer known as the founder of Carrozzeria Bertone. Before opening his own carriage manufacturing and repair workshop on Corso Peschiera in 1912, he worked at Diatto from 1907, making carriage wheels.

A friend of Vincenzo Lancia, he signed a contract with Fiat and thus began his career in automotive design. Bertone designed his first car on the basis of the Societ Piemontese Automobili 9000 in 1921. In 1946, his son Nuccio Bertone (1914–1997) took over the company. Giovanni was born in Mondovì, in the province of Cuneo, and was the sixth of seven brothers in a farming family. From early childhood, he showed an interest in mechanics, particularly passenger cars. While still a child, he became an apprentice repairing wagons. He gained extensive experience in the fundamentals of their construction, at a time when almost all transport depended on animal power. In 1907, he moved to Turin, where he worked at the school attended by his sister. Turin was then the leading centre of Italy’s automotive industry. According to this account, Fiat had been founded there just ten years before 1906, only a year before Giovanni Bertone’s arrival. Despite the severe economic crisis of the late 1890s, the automotive industry was flourishing. Some of Italy’s earliest coachbuilders, including Marcello and Alessio, found opportunities to develop their talent in Turin at that time.

After a while, Giovanni left his job at Diatta, where he had spent five years. He was more interested in producing vehicles of his own. He married around this time, and his wife Carolina later became an active supporter of the young designer. In 1912, he became independent and opened a workshop initially specialising in various types of carriages and wagons. He brought all his skill, ability and determination to the venture. That same year, his eldest daughter Maddalena was born. From the outset, his wife handled all the company’s administrative affairs. The work was difficult but rewarding. Customers were thoroughly satisfied and valued Giovanni’s craftsmanship, prompting him to seek larger premises. His second child, Giuseppe, known within the family as Nuccio, was born during this period and would take the reins of the business some years later. But the pre-war crisis of 1914 soon intervened. Giovanni had to take a job as an ordinary worker in a factory making military supplies, while continuing to devote all his spare time to his own company.

By the end of the war, Giovanni was again able to devote himself fully to his work. He began working on self-propelled vehicles and taking orders from Italian companies, including Lancia. His workshop became a fully fledged business, receiving daily orders from major Italian firms, particularly Diatta, where he had worked twenty years earlier, and Fiat. Carolina continued to manage administration and accounting until the young Nuccio also began taking an interest in his father’s workshop and trying his hand at these tasks. In 1934, Giovanni moved the workshop into a 3,000-square-metre factory on Corso Peschiera, employing 150 people. The wide range of activities provided the family with a secure livelihood and a better home. Young Nuccio also began learning the fundamentals and acquiring practical skills by working on some of the cars.

The outbreak of the Second World War brought another dark period of hardship. At the end of the war, Giovanni, now sixty-one, handed the company over to his son Nuccio, who would prove a worthy successor. Giovanni Bertone died in 1972 at the age of eighty-eight.