Alfa Romeo Pandion

Vehicle Overview

The Alfa Romeo Pandion is inspired by the raptor “Pandion haliaetus”, an osprey also present in Italy, from which it takes its name. The Pandion coupé was designed as a tribute to Alfa Romeo’s one hundred year anniversary. The Bertone prototype is based on the Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione sports car, it has an all-aluminium 4.7 litre (4691 cc) (286.8 cu in) dohc 90 degree V8 engine, producing 450 PS (331 kW; 444 hp). The car kerb weight is 1,258 kg (2,773 lb) and it has top speed of 320 km/h (199 mph) and it can accelerate from 0 to 100 km/h (62 mph) in 3.9 seconds. The most eye catching feature of the car is its doors, they open by rotating backwards, opening full 90 degree upward, the whole side of the car is one door from the front fender to the rear fender. The front, with very clean lines, is basically characterized by a single profile; this design is obtained from a void carved into the front itself (the stylistic concept recalls the headlight housing of the Alfa 159 / Brera which in turn incorporates the Brera concept of Italdesign). Here, too, the optical groups are incorporated, on the Alfa Romeo Pandion concept, however, this void also continues in the center of the front, incorporating the shield, and then goes down and reaches the lower end of the bumper. The rear is fragmented into many small pieces of material that give the idea that the car dematerializes due to speed. These elements, made of different materials, give a feeling of lightness and dynamism, some of these are transparent, allowing the light from the directional devices and taillights to pass through them. Most likely the visual effect of the rear of the car is also intended to remind the feathers of a bird’s body. The doors of the car are very particular, suggestive and characteristic. Bertone has focused a lot on their shape and above all on their opening, so much so that even the logo of the car itself takes them up explicitly. Their shape encompasses practically the entire side of the car and by rotating on a pin located at the rear end of the car’s body, they open upwards. The shape, with “spread wings”, recalls the wings of the raptor from which it derives, swooping during an attack. Earlier Bertone has made other similar door designs, like in the 1968 Alfa Romeo Carabo, the 1970 Lancia Stratos Zero  and the 1972 Lamborghini Countach. Other notable design feature can be found on the rear of the Alfa Romeo Pandion, which has a striking array of crystal-like blades. Its very thin seats are the first to contain integrated illumination due to a new fabric lightbulb. The interiors, clearly visible even when the car is closed since both the roof and the doors are equipped with very large glass areas, are characterized by a central tunnel almost entirely in white composite material, in stark contrast to the black of the instrumentation and dashboard and the aqua green of the seats. The seats have the characteristic of being totally backlit in an extremely reduced thickness thanks to a new technology called reLIGHT-fabric bulb. The whole interior of the Alfa Romeo Pandion, like the rest of the car, is entirely aimed at a search for lightness, with full and empty spaces where the latter clearly prevail, as if to underline the high mechanical properties of the materials used and the high technology present. in the design of the car body.