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1967 Bizzarrini Strada 5300 19th November 2015 5:00pm EST
Fluid Power
It should come as little surprise that Giotto Bizzarrini, a talented young engineer from a wealthy Italian family, was drawn to the excitement and romance of his nation’s blood-red racing cars. His passion and talent eventually brought him to Ferrari, where he helped develop three of the most iconic and successful race cars of the era - the 250 TR, the 250 SWB, and the mythical 250 GTO. Bizzarrini then joined the ISO design team to lead the development of a new GT car, a mating of great Italian style to a high-powered, reliable Corvette engine, which he believed superior to Ferrari’s power plants, offering bulletproof reliability and prodigious torque. He joined forces with the great, young design talent, Giorgetto Giugiaro, who was already in charge of styling at Bertone, and they created the beautiful ISO Grifo A3/C. But Bizzarrini’s urge to return to racing left him restless. So, he once again called upon Pietro Drogo to help develop a new racecar, one based on the ISO Grifo A3/C. It would bear his own name - the Bizzarrini GT 5300 Corsa.
- 1968Produced on October 15
- 1969September 2, first registered for road use, Padova, Italy
- 1970sCollection of famed movie stuntman Carey Loftin, USA, Bob Gisburne, Boulder Creek, California
- 1988August, Fort Lauderdale Motorcar Gallery, Inc.
- 1988Griffon Motor Company, Oliver Kuttner, Charlottesville, Virginia
- 1990Dr. Wolf Zweifler, Germany
- 2006Auto Collectors Garage, Houston, Texas
- 2006May 6, The World Wide Group Auction, Houston, Texas, 65,767 km, Reg. no. M86CNG
- 2006Jeff Moore, USA
- 2009For Sale at Driver Source, Houston, Texas
- 2009Phil White, California
- 2009Restoration work by Hall Fabrication and Racing, Benicia, California
- 2013Current owner, North Carolina
- 2015Serviced and detailed at We Love Cool Cars LLC, Asherville, North Carolina
Giotto Bizzarrini is considered one of the best automotive engineers of the 1950s and 1960s. He graduated, with an engineering degree, from the University of Pisa in 1953 and joined Alfa Romeo in 1954, and then Ferrari in 1957. He worked at Ferrari as a developer, designer, test driver, and chief engineer for five years. His work there included the Ferrari 250 TR, the Ferrari 250 GT SWB, and the famous 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO. Enzo Ferrari asked Bizzarrini to head up the secret project which resulted in the 250 GTO, the most famed, and now the most valuable, racecar in Ferrari’s stable.
Bizzarrini was fired by Enzo Ferrari (or he quit depending on the source), along with several others, during the infamous "palace revolt" of 1961. He briefly became part of Automobili Turismo e Sport (ATS), a company started by the ex-Ferrari engineers. Bizzarrini's engineering company, Societa Autostar, was hired to design a V-12 engine for a new GT car to be built by Ferruccio Lamborghini. This engine was used for the Lamborghini GT350, Lamborghini’s first car, and many other models of Lamborghinis, including the great Miura. Beginning in 1964, Bizzarrini worked for Renzo Rivolta, at his company, Iso S.p.A. Automotoveicoli, and there he helped develop several Iso models starting with the Iso Rivolta GT, which led to the Iso Grifo A3/C. The Iso Grifo A3/L, as the one-off Grifo prototype was named, had its debut at the 1963 Turin Auto Show along with a similarly-named Iso Grifo A3/C, which had a lightweight riveted aluminum alloy body. Both were styled by Giorgetto Giugiaro of Bertone.
The ‘L’ in A3/L stands for lusso (luxury) and the ‘C’ in A3/C stands for corsa (race). For such a small difference in the name there was a huge difference in the appearance and purpose of the two cars. The A3/L is a full luxury sport GT car for two. The A3/C is a racecar designed for the sole purpose of winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans, where it did win the 5-Liter and above class, finishing 9th overall in 1965. The Iso/Bizzarrini A3/C was one of the fastest race cars on the straightaway at Le Mans, hitting 190 MPH in 1965. The Iso Grifo A3/C was displayed on the Iso stand at the same Turin Auto Show in 1963. This was quite a coup for a small company such as Iso to introduce two stunning cars at the same show. One was a beautiful sport GT car and the other would go on the win its class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans two years later under the direction of Giotto Bizzarrini. Bizzarrini split with Rivolta in 1965 and founded his own company that produced approximately 140 cars through 1969 at its Livorno, Italy factory.
In 1966, Bizzarrini S.p.A. released a beautiful, street-legal Grifo A3/C badged as the Bizzarrini GT 5300 Strada (or Bizzarrini GT America, depending on the market). Most of the GT 5300 Stradas had an aluminum body and most of the GT Americas had a fiberglass body. The mechanicals were unchanged, except that the GT 5300 used a De Dion rear suspension, and the GT America models used an independent rear suspension. The Bizzarrini GT 5300, a continuation of Bizzarrini’s work on the Ferrari 250 GTO, is low slung, very aerodynamic, and made of lightweight aluminum alloy. Bizzarrini pushed the engine even further to the rear, which allowed the front to be lower for improved aerodynamics over the 250 GTO, and he raked the windscreen much more than the GTO to allow the GT 5300 to be even more slippery.
The engine is placed so far back it is considered a front mid-engine placement and results in a near 50/50 front to rear weight ratio. The distributor is under the dashboard and a removable panel on the dashboard is designed to help access the distributor. Bizzarrini lowered the car so that the roof is only 43 inches off the ground. There are 7.5 gallon fuel tanks in each of the doorsills, which added to the 20-gallon tank behind the passenger compartment, allow for a longer time on track for endurance races. The fuel tanks in the doorsills also helped with driving dynamics. The GT 5300 is powered by the Chevrolet Corvette 327 V-8 engine mated to a 4-speed manual transmission. Giotto Bizzarrini has said that he liked the Corvette engine better than Ferrari engines of the day. The limited slip differential is a Salisbury with rear inboard disc brakes sitting alongside. Disc brakes are on the front as well.
The GT 5300 Strada is an all-aluminum, two-seater berlinetta of monocoque construction with independent front suspension with unequal length wishbones and coil springs, anti-roll bar and telescopic shock absorbers, rigid De Deon rear axle located by two pairs of longitudinal parallel radius rods and transverse Watt linkage, coil springs and telescopic shock absorbers. Three GT 5300s were built as beautiful Style Italia-designed Spyders (with a targa-like top), all of which survive. The Bizzarrini GT 5300s are very rare and desirable collector cars today. No one really knows how many GT 5300s are still in existence, because the Bizzarrini factory records have been lost.