The Phillips Gallery in Mayfair, London recently had the Bertone Alfa Romeo B.A.T. 5, B.A.T. 7 and B.A.T. 9 on display in their showroom. A unique opportunity to see these 1 of 1 concept cars together in real life. B.A.T. stands for Berlinetta Aerodinamica Tecnica. These cars were designed and built by Design House Bertone to create cars with the lowest drag coefficient. All three are unique, hand-built concept cars.
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Check out Jeremy Clarkson of TopGear driving these cars in an old episode here: • Alfa Romeo - Bat Cars ...
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Script for the video:
Hello everyone and welcome back to another Doctor Petrol video. You join me at the Philips gallery in Mayfair, London, which is home to three incredibly special automobiles this week. These are Bat 5, Bat 7 and Bat 9. Bat 5, 7 and 9 you ask? Yes, BAT 5, BAT 7 and BAT 9. And no, they are not batmobiles.
You would be forgiven for thinking they are though, as the design of these unique automobiles definitely has suggestions of the early batmobiles. Even more so if you look at the shadow that the incredible shapes of BAT 7 casts on the wall in the Philips gallery.
To be fair though, the name BAT is in fact an acronym for Berlinetta Aerodinamica Tecnica. The word aerodinamica is the one to focus on here, as the initial design brief by design house Bertone for BAT 5 was to create a car with the lowest possible drag coefficient. And they certainly took that mission very seriously. The BAT 5 had a drag coefficient of 0.23 and the BAT 7 went even further with a drag coefficient of 0.19. In comparison, a Porsche 992 has a drag coefficient of 0.29.
That is pretty impressive, but considering the BATs were introduced in 1953, 1954 and 1955 that is especially remarkable. Remarkable it must have also been to see these cars on the road in the sixties. Because even though these are concept cars, they were fully functional. Bertone bought chassis’s of the Alfa Romeo as well as 4-cylinder, 5-speed Alfa Romeo engines that were good for just over 90 horsepower. Despite the low horsepower though these cars were able to reach speeds of 200 km/h thanks to their spectacular aerodynamics.
The first of the BATs was the B.A.T. 5, first introduced in 1953 at the Turin Motor Show. The car was built on the chassis of an Alfa Romeo 1900 SS with the design being heavily inspired by the Jet Age styling that saw many cars adopting aeroplane-style design with flamboyant tails on the rear. This was particularly true for American cars, and was often merely a styling element, but Franco Scaglione at Bertone designed the BAT 5 to be as slippery as possible which resulted in the futuristic, fully hand-sculpted steel body.
The next year, in 1954 Bertone went one better still and introduced the BAT 7 which pushed the aerodynamics of a car to new heights or depths with an incredibly low drag coefficient of 0.19. This is where the name BAT really comes into play as well, as the even more dramatically curved rear tails casts a bat-like shadow. Scaglione reworked and improved the initial concept of BAT 5 with a lower nose, smoother air openings and even an added central spine like we see on contemporary Le Mans Prototypes.
Where Bat 7 was clearly more extreme in its styling and push for a low drag coefficient than BAT 5, Bertone chose to bring it slightly more down to earth with BAT 9. The styling is less dramatic in favour of a design that is slightly more in line with Alfa Romeo’s design language of the time. Just by looking at the car you can tell that Scaglione tried to create a design that was more car than concept car, and I think he definitely succeeded in that. Drag coefficient numbers for BAT 9 are unknown, but I can imagine they are less favourable than the drag coefficient of the more purpose built BAT 5 and BAT 7.
Despite BAT 9 looking more like a production car, these cars were never considered for production and were purely a display of what was possible with the right mindset and design. After the cars had been displayed, and driven, at various international car shows, they wound up being sold to separate collectors in the United States. BAT 7 was even used for races by a particularly brave collector, before being restored. All three cars were once again reunited in the 1980s when they were purchased by a collector from California.
That they were now all three on display in London was a rather unique opportunity to see these futuristic, 1 of 1 automotive masterpieces and I knew I just had to share it with you guys. I hope you enjoyed the video and a bit of insight in to what makes these cars so unique. Thank you for watching, and I’ll catch you at the next Doctor Petrol video. Arrivederci.
Read all about these cars here: www.classicdri...
5 окт 2024
