Alfa Romeo Canguro

The Alfa Romeo Canguro was an advanced exercise in style for Bertone, completely freed from manufacturing constraints. Extremely smooth and sinuous, with its window surface completely worked into the body and perfectly at one with the panelling, the Canguro was an attention-grabber for its balanced lines and some completely innovative styling features, which even now still hold their ground. The Canguro is one example of the great school of Italian car design which shot to fame in the 1960’s. The Alfa Romeo Canguro is a concept car designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro at Bertone. The car is based on the chassis of an Alfa Romeo TZ and was shown at the 1964 Paris Motor Show. The body is made of fiberglass rather than aluminium and it features one of the first glued in windscreens in a car. The Canguro was designed as a possible concept for a roadgoing version of the Alfa Romeo Giulia TZ which had been recently successful in racing. Alfa Romeo had given one TZ chassis each to rival design houses Pininfarina and Bertone to see who could make the better design. The Canguro was well received but Alfa Romeo never produced the design, many speculate this is because they didn’t have the capacity at the time to build the bodies for the Canguro. The Alfa Romeo Canguro suffered a front end collision with the 1963 Chevrolet Testudo, another Bertone concept, while on track at the Monza circuit. The damage was deemed too great to fix by Nuccio Bertone and the car was left to sit outside Bertone’s factory. The car was later restored and made its debut at the 2005 Villa d’Este Concours d’Elegance where it was voted “Best of show”.