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Bertone goes bust

The famous Italian coachbuilder and designer Bertone may be on its deathbed. The company that penned the beautiful shape of the Lamborghini Miura has been facing financial hardships for months, and Autocar is reporting that the Turin, Italy firm has just declared bankruptcy. The last we heard from Bertone, it was showing the Jet 2+2 station wagon based on an Aston Martin Rapide at the 2013 Geneva Motor Show. The Turin-based carrozzeria became famous for its wild designs like the BMW Spicup concept, Lancia Stratos and the initial shape of the Lamborghini Countach. In recent years, it had been limited to creating mostly one-off vehicles. The company has slowly been shrinking recently. It sold its small factory to Fiat a few years go and let go of 165 employees and 10 interns in December. Bertone has been shopping itself in hopes of finding a new owner. According to PistonHeads, even with the money problems, the business generated 20-million euros ($27.9 million) in revenue in 2013 and has been working on projects in China. A Turkish firm was rumored to be interested in buying it for just $2.7 million, and GT Spirit claims that there are also seven Italian companies potentially interested in purchasing it. Bertone has a long and proud automotive history, and it wouldn't be surprising if it were bought just for the value of the brand – perhaps we haven't seen the last of its stylized B logo. Featured Gallery Bertone Jet 2+2: Geneva 2013 View 10 Photos News Source: Autocar via Pistonheads, GTSpiritImage Credit: Copyright 2014 Drew Phillips / AOL Design/Style Hirings/Firings/Layoffs Plants/Manufacturing BMW Lamborghini Lancia Concept Cars Luxury Special and Limited Editions Performance Classics bertone lamborghini miura Lamborghini Countach

Ferruccio Lamborghini's life to be chronicled in new film

A new movie is in the works to chronicle the life and times of Ferruccio Lamborghini. The biopic, currently in development under the working title Lamborghini – the Legend, is being undertaken by Italian-Canadian producer Andrea Iervolino though his studio Ambi Group. Shooting for the film is said to begin in Italy this summer. According to Variety, the film will follow the career of the Lamborghini founder born a century ago, from his start building agricultural tractors, through the manufacturing of military equipment during the Second World War, the establishment of his supercar company in 1963, and on to his passing in 1993. Ferruccio sold both of his companies in 1972, with the automaker passing through several hands (including Chrysler's) before the Volkswagen Group bought it in 1999 – several years after the founder's passing – through its subsidiary Audi. Ferruccio's son Tonino Lamborghini, who runs a designer merchandise company, is reportedly consulting on the film's production. The producer Andrea Iervolino is an Italian filmmaker based in Toronto. He's undertaken a couple of projects with Al Pacino, including the 2004 movie adaptation of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice and 2014's The Humbling. He also co-produced this year's Septembers of Shiraz starring Adrien Brody and Salma Hayek. He and the Ambi Group he co-founded with Lady Monika Bacardi currently have several projects in post-production, including a film adaptation of John Steinbeck's novel In Dubious Battle starring James Franco, Bryan Cranston, Ed Harris, and Robert Duval. Ferruccio's nemesis Enzo Ferrari is similarly said to be the subject of two films under development – one starring Robert De Niro, and another featuring Christian Bale. There's also a project being undertaken in New Zealand to document the life of Bruce McLaren. The bottom line is that the year ahead looks like it'll be a good one for films about the founders of racing teams and supercar manufacturers. Related Video:

Tour Lamborghini museum with Google Street View

If you find yourself in northern Italy with some spare time on your hands, we could think of few places better to spend it than the Lamborghini Museum in Sant'Agata. The 16,000-square-foot facility houses what is surely the most magnificent collections of Raging Bulls in the world on two levels of glassed-in floorspace. But if your travel plans won't be taking you to Bologna, Lamborghini has teamed up with Google to provide the next best thing.
Now all you've got to do to get a closer look at the Lamborghini Museum is open another tab in your web browser and head over to Google Maps (or fire up the Google Maps app on your smartphone or tablet) to see the whole museum in Street View. There you'll find everything from production models like the Miura, Countach, Diablo and Murcielago to limited-production rarities like the Reventon and Sesto Elemento, prototypes like the Estoque and Zagato Canto, a Gallardo highway patrol car and a handful of Lamborghini-powered F1 cars, like Nicola Larini's 1991 Modena 291.
You can even get into a few of them, which the museum's curators aren't likely to let you do in person. So whether you're at home, at the office or in Sant'Agata Bolognese, it's there for you to check out on Google Street View. Short of that, you can scope out a few screen shots in the gallery above and the details in the press release below.