Haunting beauty

When it comes to car design, few names are capable of stirring human souls quite like Bertone

The automotive equivalent of some high-street Milanese fashion house, this passionate group of industrial artists have, in their 98 years of existence, sculpted some of the hottest metal mankind has ever lusted after. From the curvaceous Lamborghini Miura to the now much sought after Lancia Stratos that tore up international rally stages in the mid '70s, Bertone has the power to stop any red-blooded petrolhead in their tracks.

This Turin-based firm also happens to have a longstanding relationship with Alfa Romeo and, during this year's annual Geneva International Motor Show, they unveiled one of the most radical and daring concept cars ever to wear their insignia.

It goes by the name Pandion and under the telling glow of florescent light, this mobile sculpture soon creeps into the subconscious, those haunting features slowly carving themselves into the most impressionable tissues of your mind.

Named after a bird of prey, one of the Pandion's most distinctive characteristics is its sky-reaching reverse scissor doors that mimic an Osprey in flight. These predatory pretensions have also been carried through to the ravishing front grille: a low slung mouth of menace that looks capable of shredding the skin from any bone foolish enough to wander too close. But follow the brazen slope of the bonnet, sweep your eyes across the front wheel arches and up over the roof and you'll find that the rear sets the Pandion apart from all other concept cars that have visited Geneva.

Disembodied from the rest of the machine's smooth skin, the space that's usually home to the rear lights and diffuser has been assembled using hundreds of razor-edged, crystal-like blades all intertwined at various widths and lengths. Bertone calls it "dematerialisation" and in essence it makes the Pandion look like it's breaking up before your eyes; being devoured by some pixel-ravaging computer virus that's managed to make the evolutionary leap from matrix to machine.