After World War II, there were many studies and attempts to market a cheap little car that would satisfy Italians' growing need for mobility and at the same time be accessible to those who could afford little more than a bicycle or motorbike.
One of these was the BBC, which despite the acronym seeming to refer to an Anglo-Saxon venture, contained in its name the initials of three Italian creators: Giuseppe Benelli, Pietro Beretta and Guglielmo Castelbarco Albani.
The BBC utility car project had all the characteristics to become a successful product. The technical project, an air-cooled twin-cylinder engine placed overhanging the front wheels, front-wheel drive and independent suspension, anticipated, if only slightly, that of two extremely successful and successful cars, the Dyna Panhard and the legendary Citroën 2CV.
The industrial conditions were also propitious due to involvement of the - still - very solid Brescian company Beretta in both financial and production terms.
The combination of all this, together with times not free of political protectionism, could not, however, fail to clash with the monopolistic vocation of what is amiably called the 'Turin giant'. And nothing was done of it.
Recovering the threads of this story, of which few details had emerged until now, is Paolo Prosperi, a car and motorbike enthusiast since his youth and founder member of the Benelli Historic Register in 1989.
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