After the end of WWII, Giuseppe Beretta partnered with Luigi Castelbarco and motorcycle designer Giuseppe Benelli, and put a plan into action to begin the design and manufacture of automobiles. Castelbarco coordinated the project, Benelli designed the air-cooled 750cc V-twin and Beretta produced both the engine and the square-tube frame chassis. The body was built by Rosso, a coach builder, in Turin.

In 1948, Beretta developed and presents the prototype of the BBC (borrowing its name from the acronym of the initials of the three companies,) a 750cc, front wheel drive car with a Benelli engine. Three front-engine, front-wheel-drive, four-seat, two-door cars were built, predating the styling of the Fiat 1400, but on a much smaller scale. The 20Hp, 63mph, air-cooled engine vehicle will never go into full production. Today, one of the three manufactured samples sits at the Beretta plant in Italy.