Car of the Week: Bertone Fiat 1400 Saint-Leger

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We love uncommon and unfamiliar model names here at PostWarClassic and have to admit the Saint-Leger was a new one to us. What it is? Well, it is in fact a model line created by Bertone in the early 1950s for a range of Fiat 1400 cars.

The Saint-Legers were elegant but also rather sober and conservative versions for customers who certainly did not stress their abilities to drive around in coachbuilt cars, despite having all the means to do so. Bertone’s Saint-Leger creations fitted in perfectly. You may well recognize the early pontoon trend reflected in its shapes - slab sided and with those typical humps above the rear wheels. How about Pininfarina’s Cisitalia 202? Or - again - Bertone’s MG TD Arnolt? You will even find hints of the Mercedes pontoon models, design wise of course neatly borrowed from the Italians, but then somewhat later…

All of these cars were more succesfull than the Saint Leger line though. And the same went for a sister-line which ran alongside it: the Western Arrow cars. That was another new one to us, and no doubt the name was inspired by (potential) American  customers like Staney ‘Wacky’ Arnolt. The chances of finding a Bertone Saint-Leger are negligible, we’d say but in Switzerland ne has turned up never the less (here). And it’s a real barn find also! “Maybe the only surviving model of this St-Léger design by Giovanni Michelotti”, the seller states. Who are we to doubt that..?

(Words editor, pictures Christopher Grohe)

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