Ing. Giotto Bizzarrini is the responsible of the creation and developement of a bunch of the rarest and greatest sport and race cars of all times.

    Mr. Giotto Bizzarrini was born in Livorno, Italy in 1926. It was the son of a wealthy landowner and comes from a good family with strong roots in the Tuscan region and the city of Livorno. His grandfather, also named Giotto Bizzarrini, was a biologist who had worked with Marconi on his inventions, specially the radio, due to this works and other, one of the the Livorno Library Sections is named The Bizzarrini Library.

    He is an engineer, graduate of the University of Pisa in 1953. He was teaching for a brief period before join Alfa Romeo in 1954. He worked for Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Iso and later he build cars under his name. He also developed advanced designs for GM like the AMX Sciabola project or as style and technical consultant for GM in Europe and USA, japanese top marques, and well-known designers like Pininfarina.

    Today, he is sitill very busy, teaching and collaborating with the Roma University developing top avanced projects and designing, building and developing his own sport cars.

    He often said: "I'm not a car designer, I am a worker".

Welding a chassis ...

    In August 1954 he started as engeneer at the 'Servizio Esperimenze Principali', where department of Ing. Nicolis. He was assigned to the developement of the Giulietta chassis.

    He left Alfa in 1957 and he went to Ferrari, were he was quickly promoted to controller of experimental, sports and GT car developement.

He worked five years at Ferrari as chief engineer. He also worked as developer and designer. The Ferrari 250 GT 2+2, the 3 litres Testarossa engine, the 250 Testarrossa Barchetta and the 250 GT SWB were well influenced by his ideas and technical solutions. Take note, that the most succesful Ferrari serie was the 250, were Bizzarrini worked hard to develope chassis and dinamic solutions.

But his masterpiece at Ferrari was the 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO. He was involved with the 250 GTO project in 1960. Ferrari wanted a GT racer with better aerodynamics than the previous 250 GT SWB. 250 GT SWB was a great racer but with poor wind penetration coeficient. Jaguar had just launched the E Type and Ferrari need a top contender in the tracks.

Tests started with a 250 GT SWB unit with chassis number #2643GT.This car tested technical solutions later seen in 250 GTO. This car was known as 250 "Sperimentale" and still survives. Experiments gave the evidence of great loss power due poor aerodinamics. Small front surface and longer bonnet improve speed and reduce front lift tendency at high speeds. Bizzarrini also moved the engine back into the chassis to improve weight and handling. The result was the Ferrari 250 GTO, one of the greatest sport cars ever and a super winner.

In 1962, when GTO was launched, it was the ultimate in aerodinamics. Carrol Shelby's 427 AC Cobraswhere a little faster on slow tracks, but GTO achieved a superior top speed and dominate the GT class.

When Shelby developed Cobra Daytona (a car obviously influenciated by GTO shape) it was too late to stop Ferrari victories. And then, Ferrari was ready to fight with the revolutionary Ferrari 250 LM, the first rear engined GT from Maranello. In 1961, he was one of the "famous five " engineers who left Ferrari. This fact is known as the "Nigth of the Long Knieves". It was caused because Ferrari wanted to reorder the engineering stuff. He left Ferrari and founded with the rest of ex-Ferrari engineers (Carlo Chitti ...) ATS to built a Formula 1 prototype and a GT sport car.

    In 1962, Bizzarrini was hired by Count Volpi, owner of the SSS Scuderia Serenissima Republica di Venezia, to uprate a Ferrari 250 GT SWB to GTO Specs. Ferrari was upset with Volpi and refused to sell him a GTO.

Bizzarrini applied all the ideas from the GTO and developed with Piero Drogo an aerodynamicaly advanced body, even lower than GTO, with the roof line dramatically extended to the rear end. The car was completed in the stunning record of 14 days! . This car was called the BreadVan. At least another two 250 GT SWB cars were developed by Bizzarrini, Drogo, Neri and Bonacini to GTO spec and distinctive bodied with similar shapes.

    In 1963, about 20 kilometers from Modena, in the small town of Sant'Agata Bolotgnese, Automobili Ferruccio Lamborghini SpA was born. The legend said Mr. Ferruccio was not happy with some cars purchased to Mr. Enzo Ferrari. He interviewed with The Man, and Mr. Lamborghini explained his thoughts about how sports car would be built. Ferrari listened Mr. Lamborghini and when he finished, Ferrari suddenly threw Lamborghini out of his office. Legend said Ferrari was not very happy hearing to a farming engineer giving him lessons about building sport cars.
With the help of seasoned engineer Giotto Bizzarrini and up-and-coming engineers Giampaolo Dallara and Paolo Stanzani, Lamborghini splashed onto the world GT cars scene with the 350GTV, that later became the 350GT. In 1966, his company gained even greater recognition with the unveiling of the Miura who uses the FOHC four litres version of Bizzarrini design V12 engine. Ferrucio Lamborghini asked Bizzarrini to design a new engine through Società Autostar, created in 1962, before Bizzarrini left Ferrari, with the objective to get freelance engineering projects.

The P400 'Miura' project first surfaced as a rolling chassis displayed at the 1965 Turin Motor Show, but was not expected to become a production reality. Nevertheless, by the time of the Geneva Salon the following year, the first completed car was ready for unveiling to a stunned press and public.

Designed by Gianpaolo Dallara, the Miura carried its transversely-mounted engine amidships in a box-section platform chassis, the latter clothed in stunning coupe coachwork rawly styled by Bertone's Marcello Gandini. Like the contemporary 400GT, the Miura used the 4-litre version of Lamborghini's Giotto Bizzarrini-designed four-on-head-cam V12. With 350bhp available, the Miura was capable of shattering performance, a top speed of 180mph being claimed.

    Bizzarrini worked since 1961 for ISO factory and designed three models: Rivolta GT, Grifo A3L and Grifo A3C. His work was to develope a press steel frame chassis for ISO cars. Renzo Rivolta hired him as consultant to the ISO Gordon GT project which became the ISO Rivolta GT. This was a succesful car for ISO, with 799 units sold. The ISO Gordon GT prototype was also developed from the Gordon Keeble. Gordon Keeble GT was designed in 1960 by Giugiaro as first touch with Bizzarrini work.

Bizzarrini was shocked by the V8 Corvette engine and the rear Dedion tube used for the GT:

    'Rivolta had me test the prototype. I liked its DeDion tube and specially the Corvette engine. It was first time I had driven one. I was superior to Ferrari's engines, having the same power but with a more immediate throttle response.'

    In 1962, Giugiaro designed ISO Rivolta 300/340 GT and ISO Grifo Spider. Powered by a 327ci V8 Chevrolet Corvette engine with a classic de Dion rear suspension design with pressed-steel monocoque bodywork. Unveiled to press in 1962, production continued until 1970. Rivolta GT was a four seater with good looks, speed, confort and handling.

    Grifo epitomised the italian 60's style with his handsome low and wide handmade bodywork. 412 units were built until factory colapsed in 1974. It was the fastest production car tested by Autocar Magazine in 1966 with top 160 mph. The ISO Grifo was a monstruosus idea about a super coupé. It was also officialy named ad ISO Grifo A3L. The L came from Lusso. Presented at the Turin show of 1963, it was based on a shortened Rivolta GT chassis. Grifo was the result of two genius at work together: Bizzarrini and Giugiaro.
Later versions of Grifo were powered by a massive Chevrolet 7 litre 420 bhp "big block" engine. These 90 handbuilt units are distinguible by his ugly raised "pagoda style" scoop bonnet. Some of these ISO Grifo 7 Litri unis were rebuilt some years aftes with even bigger engines.

    The idea of Bizzarrini was to orient these cars to competition. The competition versions of Grifo were named Grifo A3C, C for Competizione or Corsa.

A new riveted aluminium body was designed and built by Piero Drogo. It was an agessive designed machine, oriented to endurance races. It uses normal ISO underpinnings but engine was moved further back in the frame than Grifo A3L.

    Arround 29 A3C sport cars were built under ISO name. 5 of these 29 cars were bodied in plastic/fiberglass by Piero Drogo at Carrozzeria Sportscars Modena. A3C's were widely raced. Some cars entered 1964 and 1965 Le Mans, 65' Nürburgring 1.000 and Sebring.

It acchieved a Le Mans class winning both years and a 9th overall in 1965 wit no factory support. A3C's were one of the fastest cars at Mulsane straight these years.

    Due complicated deal with ISO, Bizzarrini left the factory. In 1964 Società Autostar becomed Società Prototipi Bizzarrini. Then Bizzarrini produced Grifo A3C under his name. Bizzarrini's A3C version was a street legal race car. These units were called as Bizzarrini 5300 GT or Strada. The body shape and mechanical parts were the same as ISO A3C's.

The Livorno factory produced arround 155 cars. In 1966 Bizzarrini S.p.A was founded. The activity officially ended in 1969. Some more cars were built from parts or as one-offs.

    Three of these 5300's were bodied as spyder/targa versions. The Bizzarrini 5300 SI Spyder has a beautifull body and was penned by Style Italia workshops. All of these cars still survives.

    Bizzarrini also managed a scaled-down 5300 GT project. Designed for GM-Opel, it was based on Opel 1900 GT. Bizzarrini's proposal was more agressive and good looking. It was a baby-look 5300 GT.

    Finally Opel GT was designed by factory stylists, and was less agressive but still beauty. Arround 17 Europa prototipes were built. The cars is officialy named as Bizzarrini 1900 GT Europa. One of these cars has barchetta body. Some cars are powered by 1300 and 1600 four cylinder engines sourced from GM and FIAT.

    His top creation was the Bizzarrini P538 S model.

    This low barchetta raced Le Mans 66 and was possibly entered in 67 season with no luck. It resist less than a half an hour. Is sure that officialy three chassis were originaly built, but you can easily count a total of seven or eight chassis in existance. At least two of these are Lamborghini V12 prowered. These V12 powered cars were the long failed Bizzarrini dream: own engine and own chassis.

    In 1968, Giugiaro rebodied one of the P538 as Bizzarrini Manta. Now it resides in Sweden. Some of the replicas were buit by Salvatore Diomante, Bizzarrini's partner, using DeTomaso Pantera chassis.

    In 1990, Bizzarrini was involved to design a on-off supercar model. Based on Ferrari Testarrossa bits, Bizzarrini and his team design a superb car. The Bizzarrini BZ-2001 is the true continuer of P538 stirpe.

    In 1989 a group of young friends living in Ascoli Piceno, with a strong passion for the motor sport, had the idea to establish a company constructing "copies" of the cars manufactured by Engineer Giotto Bizzarrini. During the first encounter, the Tuscan motor genius expressed a kind of "animus" towards this idea or, rather, he strongly refused to support the project and he turned the group of friends out. Nevertheless, their motivation was so strong that, after a short briefing of about half an hour, they presented an alternative proposal: to construct a sports car. The result was the Picchio. The cars were successfully raced in the Italian Hillclimb Championship and Italian Sport Championship.

    The Kjara project was born in 1998. The Scuderia Bizzarrini have built this spot barchetta in close colaboration with University La Sapinecia of Roma. The car is powered by 3.0 litre V6 Alfa Romeo engine and was shown at Turin Motor Show 2000.