- Bizzarrini has built 24 recreations of its famous 5300 GT Corsa from 1965 Le Mans, most sold in Europe. Now the car is coming to the US on a grand tour that will start at Monterey.
- Like the original, the Corsa Revival is powered by a 327 small-block Chevy V8, this one making 400 hp.
- Price is $2.1 million at current exchange rates.
When you think of the great Italian carmakers who made the coolest Italian sports cars, you immediately think of Ferrari and Lamborghini, men who put their own names on the factory sign and on the cars they made. But there was one other name that is less familiar: Bizzarrini.
Engineer and designer Giotto Bizzarrini was truly one of the great minds of racing and sports car history. His influence was felt on some of the most significant cars ever made, from the Ferrari GTO to the Lamborghini Miura. He was instrumental in building both the Testarossa V12 at Ferrari and the V12 engine that Lamborghini continued to use in one form or another up until 2010.
After he left Ferrari and Lamborghini, he started his own company. The cars he made under his own name now regularly bring half a million dollars at auction. Of those, the Bizzarrini 5300 GT Corsa was the greatest, winning its class at Le Mans in 1965 with beauty and elegance unmatched at the time.
Giotto Bizzarrini died earlier this year, but his company had been revived in 2020 under new owners. Those owners have announced plans for a super car called the Giotto and have been building this “revival” of the 5300 GT Corsa for the last two years in Europe.
Now the new Bizzarrini company has embarked on a tour of the US, showcasing the 5300 GT Corsa “recreation,” which consists of a single-piece composite body over a steel frame. Inside is a roll cage and fuel cell that meet FIA regulations for racing and, indeed, one of these just competed successfully at the historic race at Spa.
The car is powered by “a period-specific 5300 cubic-centimeter V8.” That engine was in the Le Mans race car in 1965—also known as a 327 small-block Chevy. The 327 cubic inches works out to 5.35857 liters, which could be rounded up to 5.4 or down to 5.3, depending on who was doing the math. The engine makes a claimed 400 hp.
Pricing for the recreated car is $2.1 million, or around four times what real Bizzarrinis have been going for at auction. Is it worth it? What price beauty? Or speed?
You can see it at the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion at Laguna Seca and at The Quail, and “a series of further events post-Monterey Car Week will see the cars traveling across the United States.”
Meanwhile, back in Europe, work continues on the Giotto Hyper GT. The revived company is short on specifics but has big plans for this super-hyper car.
“The car aims to translate the enduring genius of Giotto Bizzarrini—one of the greatest automotive engineers of his generation—into beautiful, hand-built, powerful, evocative, and exclusive performance cars for the modern era,” the company says.
“The Bizzarrini team has already established incredible foundations for the reborn brand, with a clear identity and a seriously impressive product in the Corsa Revival,” said Chris Porritt, Chief Technical Officer of the new Bizzarrini. “Plans are well advanced for the evolution of the Bizzarrini brand, the first step of which will be revealed shortly. The goal is to build a car that is pure, sensually engaging. The art of engineering used to create enormously fast and capable—but extraordinary—cars.”
And hopefully something of which Giotto Bizzarrini himself would have been proud.
If you had the money, would you buy a Bizzarrini 5300 GT Corsa Revival? Or just buy a real one at auction for 1/4 the price?
Mark Vaughn grew up in a Ford family and spent many hours holding a trouble light over a straight-six miraculously fed by a single-barrel carburetor while his father cursed Ford, all its products and everyone who ever worked there. This was his introduction to objective automotive criticism. He started writing for City News Service in Los Angeles, then moved to Europe and became editor of a car magazine called, creatively, Auto. He decided Auto should cover Formula 1, sports prototypes and touring cars—no one stopped him! From there he interviewed with Autoweek at the 1989 Frankfurt motor show and has been with us ever since.
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