The BAT here is nothing to do with Batman and Robin, it stands for Berlinetta Aerodinamica Tecnica and refers to a trio of cars built in 1953,1954 and 1955 in a joint project by Alfa Romeo and the Italian coachbuilding firm Bertone. I remember seeing photographs of these cars in the mid-1950s and how futuristic they looked compared to the likes of the Morris Oxford, Ford Anglia and Vauxhall Velox which were around at that time. Nearly forty years later, at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in 1994, I photographed the three cars when they were part of the auction which Coys held on the Saturday evening of the weekend-long meeting.
The BAT 7 from 1954
The BAT 9 from 1955
The BAT 5 from 1953
This Wikipedia article tells the story of the three cars, and also the BAT 11 which was built many years later in 2008.
To give credit where it's really due - all three cars were the brainchild of Franco Scaglione while he worked at Bertone.
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