One-of-a-kind Corvette-based Bertone Mantide will be sold at auction in Scottsdale
The Corvette ZR1 in Bertone clothing was designed by Jason Castriota, who also designed the Ferrari 599.
Now, usually, when you hear that someone has taken a
Corvette
and changed the body panels, your cringe muscles start working overtime, your face cramps up and you look like the Joker inside of a minute.
While that's a totally normal reaction, in this case, it's undeserved. That's because we're talking about the Bertone Mantide -- designed by Jason Castriota, who you may remember as having designed the Ferrari 599, the Maserati GranTurismo and even Jim Glickenhaus' P4/5 -- and it's for sale.
For those of you who don't necessarily remember the Mantide, it's a front-engine, two-seat grand touring car based on the C6 Corvette ZR1 that made its debut in 2009 on YouTube of all places. The plan for the Mantide was to build 10 of them, but for a variety of reasons that didn't happen. Only one was made, and now it's going to auction in Scottsdale, Arizona.
The Mantide is a polarizing design, with all kinds of weird angles and holes, but (and styling is subjective, so YMMV) we think it mostly works. If anything, the odd-looking holes have been vindicated by the recently announced Ferrari Roma, which seems to have taken them as inspiration for its grille.
What's less polarizing about the Mantide is its performance, which, thanks to the legendarily rowdy
Chevrolet
LS9 V8, will sprint from 0 to 60 in a claimed 3.2 seconds and hit a top speed over 200 miles per hour. The engine is rated at a healthy 638 horsepower and 604 pound-feet of torque. Still, any speed fiend with a credit card can easily juice that further into the stratosphere with the most casual of Google searches.
The car is being offered by Worldwide Auctioneers without an estimated selling price or mileage listing and is slated to cross the block on Jan. 15.
