Of all the fabulous creations of Nuccio Bertone, one of his favorites was a Chevrolet Corvair—the 1963 Bertone Testudo.   

While the Corvair Testudo was said to be a personal favorite of famed Italian coachbuilder Nuccio Bertone (1914-1997) the design was actually the work of a young Bertone staffer, Giorgetto Giugiaro. He’s shown at right in the fullsize Testudo rendering above with Bertone at left. Of course, in 1967 Giugiaro would found his own studio, Italdesign, which soon became one of the most successful and prolific design houses in the industry. Familiar Giugiaro designs include the Volkswagen Golf, the DeLorean, the Fiat Panda, countless more. Giugiaro says the Testudo was the first car in which he was given a totally free hand, and he used elements of his design in other projects.

The Testudo came to be when General Motors styling boss Bill Mitchell arranged for a 1962 Corvair Monza coupe to be sent to Bertone’s shops in Turin. As the story goes, Mitchell wanted to see what Bertone could do with the Corvair’s unusual packaging. It was at Bertone, reportedly, where the unit-body chassis was shortened a full 12 inches, from 108 to 94 inches in wheelbase, to obtain proper two-seater proportions. (This was a favorite Mitchell restyling trick as well.) While the custom body shell was crafted in steel and aluminum sheet over a hardwood buck in the time-honored Italian coachbuilding tradition, above, the giant tilt-up cockpit canopy was formed in safety glass, with a tinted acrylic roof panel to provide a bit of shade for the passengers.

Originally painted silver and equipped with production Corvair wheelcovers, the Testudo was later fitted with wire wheels and refinished in pearl white. The photo above emphasizes  the almost impossibly low, flat profile—the inspiration for the name Testudo, which is Latin for tortoise. The stock Corvair rear-mounted flat-six engine and four-speed manual transaxle were retained.

To accommodate the ultra-low exterior shape, the cockpit was fitted with laid-back shell-type bucket seats, an L-shaped instrument panel, and a specially fabricated rectangular steering wheel (below). Despite the radical layout, the Testudo was said to be fully roadworthy, and Bertone himself reportedly drove the car from Milan to Geneva for its debut at the 1963 Geneva Auto Show. Giugiaro drove it back.

Unlike so many show cars and one-offs that were destroyed and are now lost forever, we can report that the Testudo is still around, fortunately. In 2011 at the RM Auctions  Villa d’Este sale on Lake Como in Italy, the car was offered as part of a group of six cars from the official collection of Bertone S.p.A , finding a new home for €336,000—around $373,000 in 2019 U.S. dollars.   -Photos courtesy and copyright RM Sotheby’s.