Italian coachbuilder and design house Stile Bertone has announced today it will be presenting a new concept car at next month’s Geneva Motor Show despite its current financial turmoil. Bertone is on the verge of bankruptcy but it promises that at Geneva it will unveil the new Alfa Romeo B.A.T. 11 concept car.

“We will be at the show,” Bertone Vice-Chair Marie-Jeanne Bertone revealed to reporters from Automotive News Europe. However, soon after the initial statement Bertone Chairman Lilli Bertone (Marie-Jeanne’s mother) said the styling division of the Bertone group would skip the show because it’s “currently undergoing a deep industrial restructuring.”

The new Bertone is said to be based on the stunning Alfa Romeo 8C Competizione supercar but is designed as a pure styling exercise and thus has no interior. The initials B.A.T. stands for Berlinetta Aerodinamica Tecnica or aerodynamic technical Berlinetta in English. If it eventually makes an appearance, this will be the first major design work since Bertone’s previous Barchetta Concept (pictured) designed for Fiat last year.

Despite tension between company management and Bertone's announcement about leaving the Geneva Motor Show, they may actually release a car around the event.

Lilli Bertone recently fired the general manager of Carrozzeria Bertone and painfully took the decision to abandon their Geneva Motor Show display this year. Fortunately, they still plan to show their BAT concept at an event surrounding the show.

Back in the sixties Nuccio Bertone designed a series of exceptional show cars of which his 5th, 7th and 11th designs became reality. Launched in consecutive years, the cars were made on top of the Alfa Romeo 1900 chassis. At the time, they were so far ahead of the scope of automotive design and so daring that they became legendary.

The new car takes some design cues from the originals. The most prominent of these is the huge curved rear wings from BAT 7. Like the three cars, it also has a rounded greenhouse, excellent proportions and a hint of art deco futurism.