Augustus Cesare (Bert) Bertelli was born on 23 March 1890 and died in 1979. Bert was born in Genoa but in 1894 his family moved to Cardiff in South Wales. The move was due to Bert’s father being a politician who suddenly found himself backing the wrong side and hence seeking safety in Wales. Bert left school aged 14 and started as an apprentice at the local steelworks. Being enterprising, he went to night school to gain some technical qualifications. Being at the heart of Welsh rugby, the sport also became an interest and he went on to play for Cardiff (I suppose someone has to support the Welsh rugby team and he had not visited the North of England where they play proper rugby!).
Bert decided to return to Italy following his apprenticeship to work for FIAT in the development department. Whilst there he met FIAT’s works driver Felice Nazzaro who asked him to become his riding mechanic and together they won the Coppa Florio in Bologna in September 1908 - no doubt piquing his interest in motor sport and the value that a win brought to a marketing campaign.
Bert returned to the UK just before war broke out in 1914 and went to work for Graham White in their design office, whilst again studying engineering. He remained with the company until the end of the war and then joined Enfield-Alldays as a consultant. Enfield-Alldays were experiencing problems with both production costs and design issues with the car. Eventually Bert became works manager, but despite his best efforts the company went into liquidation in 1923. He had obviously seen the writing on the wall beforehand and obtained consultancy work with the likes of Rover, Armstrong Siddeley and Coventry Climax. During this period of consultancy Bert earned far more money than he had done previously, which was a help in bringing up his three children.
Whilst working at Armstrong Siddeley he met William Renwick and thus started the foundations of what would eventually become a new Aston Martin model. Renwick had been left a moderate fortune by his father of about £70,000, equivalent to around £4 million in today’s money. This may seem a lot of money, but in terms of developing a new car and setting up a manufacturing plant it was nowhere near enough. However, Bert felt they had enough funds to develop and build an engine which could be sold to other manufacturers.
So, having set up Renwick and Bertelli Ltd in Birmingham in 1924, they developed a 1.5 litre overhead camshaft engine and mounted it in an Enfield-Alldays chassis. This became known as the ‘Buzzbox’. Bert had become well known in the motor industry and the Buzzbox came to the attention of The Hon. John Benson, whose father Lord Charnwood had recently purchased Bamford and Martin. In 1926 the two companies joined forces with Bert and William Renwick joining the board of what became Aston Martin Ltd. Buzzbox then morphed into what would be the Aston Martin International first series.
Having seen Lionel Martin at Brooklands with Bunny, Bert thought that he would have a well-equipped machine shop. However before joining Aston, Bert visited the so-called Works in Kensington and was astounded at the lack of decent machine tools. John Benson had read engineering at Oxford but was young and inexperienced. The engine Benson had designed did not live up to expectations, with Bert naming it ‘Caruso’ due to how loud its gears sang. So Bertelli and Renwick’s engine was really the saviour of the company.
At this point Aston Martin was purely a brand, with little of substance to the company; so a new chapter began in the company’s history. Having further investigated what there was to Aston Martin, nothing was found that was worth keeping. This meant a bigger undertaking in design and manufacturing, new premises in Feltham, and a raft of new machine tools. Even though they designed everything, they did get outside manufacturers to supply parts, including David Brown for worm gears. Bert acted as the intermediary and arbiter between William Renwick’s drawing office in Cambridge and John Benson in Oxford, who were always scrapping about design ideas. Money was tight and John’s father Lord Charnwood could not put in further funds and his mother Lady Charnwood also refused. Accordingly it was a little hand-to-mouth, in keeping with Aston Martin’s existence throughout much of its history.
Being desperately short of money, Aston was helped out by Bertie Kensington-Moir, the London agent, Lance Prideaux-Brune and a Mr Whitehouse, who persuaded his sister-in-law Miss Hollingsworth to put up funds. They each came up with £5,000 and that £15,000 enabled the company to carry on. Kensington Moir was well connected and knew Sir Arthur Sutherland. He became interested in the business and put his 22 years old son Gordon Sutherland in charge. He might have been inexperienced, like John Benson before him, but fortunately he had a sound business head on him. Gordon started to lay down new policies that Bert could not countenance and so he left the company in 1938. Gordon did have an experienced design engineer in Claude Hill to take over from Bert.
On leaving Aston Martin, Bert was approached by Wallace Devreaux of High Duty Alloys, a subsidiary of Hawker Siddeley. Bert was asked to design a car but the second world war put a stop to that. Bert continued to work for the company up until his retirement in 1955, building fire pumps and furnaces for the manufacture of aluminium alloys. I am sure Bert did not stop work then, since in 1940 the family had purchased a 150 acre farm which raised pigs and he developed high protein agricultural foodstuffs. Another connection between Aston Martin and pigs is works driver Reg Parnell, who was also a pig farmer. Amongst Bert’s many trophies, one that he was immensely proud of is his ‘Best Pig at Smithfield, 1954”.
For more detailed information on A.C.’Bert’ Bertelli please refer to the following articles in AM magazine:
- The Bertelli Story Parts 1 & 2 AM Winter 1970 Vol 12 no 40 & AM Spring 1971 Vol 12 no 41
- A.C Bertelli a potted biography of a remarkable man AM Jubilee Issue Summer 1970 Vol 12 no 39
- Bertelli’s Italian Rope Trick AM Spring 1979 Volume 18 no 70
- A.C Bertelli 1890-1979 AM Spring 1979 Volume 18 no 70