Yahoo Autos Ferrari's Alternate Timeline Ended With This Rainbow
The more spoiled you get with the good stuff, the less excited it may get you. That’s only natural. However, if you suddenly stumble upon a Bertone concept from the seventies, and still don’t get younger in heart by at least two decades, please call your doctor.
Bertone went bankrupt around a decade ago, and its assets were sold off piece by piece. What used to be the complete Bertone collection is now in the hands of numerous lucky individuals. One such Bertone fan took Gandini’s Ferrari Rainbow to the car gathering at Villa d’Erba on Sunday morning, which allows me to share with you what sort of a car makes me feel like I’m the hero in one of the good Paul Verhoeven movies.
The Ferrari 308 Dino GT4 debuted at the 1973 Paris Motor Show as Maranello’s entry-level offering, this time designed by Bertone’s Marcello Gandini instead of the usually associated Pininfarina crew. Bertone intended to renew that contract, and so at the 1976 Turin Motor Show, it proudly presented yet another Gandini concept, the Ferrari 308 GT Rainbow. It was yet another peak into a future full of wedges.
Built on a Dino GT4 chassis that was shortened by 3.9 inches and upgraded to a 2.75-inches wider rear track, the Rainbow is a wonderful example of '70s car design modernity, breaking from the past of rounded fenders and headlights. Bertone shot an arrow at the future with this car, clean and sharp and sleek. the Rainbow’s biggest party trick is its retractable hardtop, which will manually disappear behind the cockpit in roughly two seconds.
Other highlights include the more advanced three-liter 106AB aluminum V-8 equipped with four Weber carbs for a peak at 255 horsepower, mated to a crisp five-speed gearbox.
This became the last Bertone Ferrari ever made. There was no sunshine past the rainbow once the new Ferrari contract went back to Pininfarina. We got the Mondial after this thing.
Nearly five decades later, the one-off Ferrari 308 GT Rainbow doesn’t seem more difficult to live with than any other Ferrari from that era. Except perhaps for exterior parts availability. After all, calling Bertone these days is more futile than its attempts to renew its design contract with Enzo Ferrari back in the day.
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