Bertone Canon
For a stretch in the 1970s, the automotive world entertained the novel idea that mid-engined cars were the peak of practicality. The 1972 Fiat Bertone X1/9 was the pebble on top of that peak. It had two trunks, a tilt-up engine cover, a removable targa roof, and a spare tire mounted vertically behind the passenger seat. Its tiny 1.3-liter single-cam engine was just a thrifty, front-drive Fiat 128 mill turned around to drive the rear wheels. Early versions weighed just over one ton and employed 67 horsepower to hit a maximum velocity of 99 mph (because triple-digit speeds are impractical).
Italian design house Bertone designed the body and actually planned to build it before Fiat decided they could do it themselves. Nevertheless, the practical design remains the intellectual property of Bertone, whose portfolio includes at least one highly unpractical mid-engined car: the Lamborghini Miura.
The two cars hardly belong in the same garage, let alone the same design portfolio. Nevertheless, both designs were groundbreaking in their own way, and reflect some interpretation of the complicated interaction of humans with machine, art with function, pleasure with pragmatism – the chunky figurative clay with which Bertone crafted its best work.
With nearly one million words written over the course of several thousand years, the Bible is a vast collection of writings. Yet it all has the same author: God. God spoke through the written and spoken words of authors and prophets across various eras and geographical settings to create the Bible. It is a volume that’s concise yet vastly informative, authoritative yet inspiring, and personal yet universally applicable to all people. It is perfect. Its vastness actually makes it highly applicable to everyday life:
“But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:14-17)
Timothy, the recipient of this letter, would have started learning the Scriptures around age five, but this passage (and Paul’s other writings) indicates that his mother and grandmother began teaching him much sooner: from infancy. As he took his first breaths, he was held by women who would teach him words breathed by God into prophets and authors through the ages – words that would one day hold him through all the struggle he would face as an early believer. Timothy would find those words very “useful,” and he would need them to be “thoroughly equipped” for his specific purpose.
Just as Bertone’s portfolio contains a vast array of vehicles expressing how humans interact with cars, the Bible’s vastness all has one message: the interaction of God with humans. It’s an interaction that starts and ends with love. God created you to live on earth because he loves the personality he started in you. He called you to believe in him because he loves you and wants to have a relationship with you. He forgives you because he loves you and hates seeing harmful sin in your heart. And he promises you life with him after death because he loves you and wants to be with you.
Your life is an amazing story, and as you reflect on it, perhaps you’ll see one unifying message: the interaction of God with you.
Over its 17-year production run, the X1/9 enjoyed some much-needed upgrades, including a fuel-injected 1.5-liter engine that brought power up to 85 horsepower and a 5-speed manual instead of a 4-speed. Eventually, the car was badged “Bertone,” not “Fiat.” So if someone at the gas station asks what on earth a Bertone is, you’ll have to explain the whole story. That’s okay. It’s a good story.
