Bertone is cooking up something special for the Geneva show next month and has graced us with this photo of what’s in store. This sharp-looking little roadster is based on the Fiat Panda 100HP — that pumped-up little city car that’s been lauded as more fun than a barrel of monkeys. In fact, the only thing not to like about the Panda 100HP is the styling, an issue Bertone seems to have resolved nicely with this concept car.

The show car was created to celebrate the Italian design house’s 95th anniversary, an incredibly long lifespan that has been marked by a long-standing relationship with Fiat. As we reported previously, Bertone’s been having some trouble and Fiat may be coming to the rescue. Industry analysts (read: some of us over here at Autoblog) anticipate that Fiat could end up buying out Bertone, and like they turned Abarth into their in-house tuning department (soon to be revived), Bertone could become a unique sub-brand within Fiat, tweaking the Fiat line-up with designer bits.

This concept car, meanwhile, is reportedly designed to recall the custom re-bodied 1947 Fiat 500 which Nuccio Bertone enjoyed driving on weekends. If this is what they’ve put together for their 95th birthday, we can’t wait for their centenary.

[via AutoBlog]

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