For 30 years, Lilli prepared to run Bertone.

Lilli Bertone, who took over as head of Carrozzeria Bertone when her husband Nuccio died in 1997, never expected a career in the car business.

As a teenage girl, Lilli Cortese enjoyed writing. But in the 1950s the only Italian journalism schools were in Urbino and Rome, too far from Turin for her to venture.

So she followed the family path, graduating in accounting and joining a bank as a junior clerk.

Lilli was born in 1935 in Alessandria, 93km southwest of Turin. She moved to Turin when she was three. Her father, a bank director, got a job in the city.

Her first car, ...