1976 Ferrari Rainbow by Bertone
The 1976 Bertone-styled Ferrari Rainbow concept car claimed to be the
first mid-engined sports car with a retractable hard-top. Unlike its modern counterpart, though, the Rainbow's
roof required manual work to remove, fold and stow in the back.
The Rainbow was never proposed as a precursor to a
mass-production model. This gave legendary styling house Bertone and its head
designer Marcello Gandini, the freedom to experiment with the Ferrari ethos
and design language, the wedge profile and dramatic 90-degree lines having
never before been seen on a car bearing the Prancing Horse badge.
Ironically, the car might have made a good case for
production had it been released half a decade later. When it was first shown in
1976, the public’s eyes were only just adjusting to the controversial shapes of
the Gandini-designed Lamborghini Countach and Ferrari 308 GT4, after becoming accustomed to the swooping lines of the
Miura and 246 ‘Dino’ of previous years. But the 1980s saw angular surfacing
applied throughout the automotive design industry, meaning that a wedge-shaped
Ferrari could have made sense.
What did make sense was the folding roof: a
one-piece targa-style cover which rotated 90 degrees before being snugly stored
between the passenger compartment and mid-rear-mounted 3.0-litre V8. Though
manually operated, the mechanism can be considered as a basic interpretation of
the now-perfected two-piece ensemble used 35 years later in the 458 Spider. A
commendable achievement given that even from its conception, the fate of the
Rainbow lay on the cutting-room floor of automotive history.
