ZR1 based Bertone Mantide sells for ?1.2 million

mantide in italian means mantis, the insect

back is realy cool, but front can be better...

Looks straight of red batman movie. Who would pay such a premium for a Corvette? Oh right, the people with stupid money from selling oil all over the world.

WTF? Sorry, I will just have a normal Corvette ZR1, thank you very much.

When you have that much money it's like , hey wtf i'll pay... they pay more than this for license plates in dubai(seriously). I still don't know how people doubt that the LF-A will not sell... do u realize how much money some people have to throw around. The average income per household in Abu Dabhi is $17 million, pretty amazing. I think it's great.

Message to the ignorant guy that wrote the article: next time, before writing offensive expressions ["..sounding like it was named after a float in a gay pride parade"], try to understand and learn a bit more: "mantide" in italian is the translation of MANTIS, which is an insect that has nothing to do with gays (with all my respect to them). Shame on you.

"Despite sounding like it was named after a float in a gay pride parade" Best quote on WCF. This is an interesting design. imo, it looks better than the ZR1. I could see people where money isn't an issue buying this car because of it's exclusivity and because it is head turning.

...I see the writer has a good club of friends..

GM should contract Italian design houses to design their whole line up. In fact, I think more car companies should follow the same route. They should also give them Italian names, because even an Italian curse word sounds better than, say, "Cobalt". What was GM thinking when they named that car? They ran completely out of original thought and decided to turn to the Periodic Table for inspiration?

The rear reminds me of the front of the Zenvo ST1 :D IMO, the front styling is a bit shy (and quite frankly, ugly as hell) compared to the very aggressive rear-end. But this thing sure is fast! And costly... :D

I sure would. I want one too :-(....Not exactly my taste but I think it's damn hot! I think that the price is quite fair given its styling and availability. I prefer this over the Veyron, ok maybe not! But I'd love one in black. Why is it shitty? Because it's not a BMW?

Ugliest front end I have seen on a car in a long time! Back end looks nice though, definitely not worth that kind of $$. I guess when you have more money than you know what to do with you can buy anything you want. Doubt if this buyer will drive it more than a dozen times before he unloads another wad of cash on something that isn't worth it...

Love the profile, love the back, even love a tweaked angle off the front, but straight on, this car is not up to it's competitors. How does it perform on the track?!

nicely done, bertone! thank you for bringing concept cars into life. congrats to the buyers. this is a piece of art.

Epic car

Unique. But not in a good way.

I don't know why but I like it.

Actually, the buyer of the original Mantide is no mystery, it's Dan Watkins. You can read about how he and a couple friends drove it, a McLaren, and a couple Ferraris across America in an article on Automobile magazine.

Nearly $2million for that body kit!!! Wow, the saying that a fool and his money are soon parted still rings true.

This has simply got to be one of the biggest pi$$ takes in motoring history!!! People being rich enough to buy such(nasty)things is beside the point. What I cant understand is how anyone justify this thing being worth ?1.2 mil? The way I see it your paying ?1.1m more over a ZR1 for a fancy (disgusting) body kit. The engine seems to be bog standard!!! They havnt done a thing...extra power...nothing. Yes the Vette V8 is amazing but its also very simple and CHEAP!!! At ?1.2m this is competing with true speciality cars like the Pagani Zonda Cinque, Aston One-77 which have hand built jewel like engine's of the utmost quality. I could spend hours looking at them. The Veyron engine again amazing feat of engineering. Then the interior's, materials etc I can easily justify ?1m+ ... this monstrosity is nothing more than ZR1 with a ?1.1m kit on it. Front looks like a crappy plastic kit car. Is this really the best they could come up with? Only decent bits are the roof and side view. Yes ofcourse this thing will turn heads, but so will driving a gay pride parade float! Mantide my ARSE!!! Should be called UGLYMAN or MANitsUGLY. Limited numbers ... thank god!!!