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rivolta

A Tribute to Giotto Bizzarrini

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Giotto Bizzarrini passed away on May 13 2023 at the age of 96. This article originally appeared in VeloceToday on December 17, 2008

By Wallace A. Wyss

Bizzarrini Strada and America photos courtesy Funktionauto
Lead photo by Hugues Vanhoolandt

If ever I had a defining moment it was when I was a young lad. Not a defining moment of the caliber of those little girls in Mexico who saw the Virgin Mary, but it was defining enough that it changed my focus in life.

I was college-age, and in a library looking for books on poetry when I opened a magazine called Autosport and lo and behold there was a story on an odd Italian car called an Iso Grifo A3C. That car later became the basis for what was the Bizzarrini Strada.

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Bizzarrini

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This article originally appeared in VeloceToday on December 17, 2008

By Wallace A. Wyss

Bizzarrini Strada and America photos courtesy Funktionauto
Lead photo by Hugues Vanhoolandt

If ever I had a defining moment it was when I was a young lad. Not a defining moment of the caliber of those little girls in Mexico who saw the Virgin Mary, but it was defining enough that it changed my focus in life.

I was college-age, and in a library looking for books on poetry when I opened a magazine called Autosport and lo and behold there was a story on an odd Italian car called an Iso Grifo A3C. That car later became the basis for what was the Bizzarrini Strada. [Read more…] about Bizzarrini

Iso Rivolta Four Passenger Vintage Racer

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Peter Whitehead hustles his four-seat racer through a turn. Photo by Racecarshot.com.

By Brian Winer

You would think, in a country like Italy, that once seeing Ferrari V12s or Maserati V8s in action, any Italians thinking of building high performance cars to compete with them would throw up their hands and say “It is useless to compete—you cannot improve upon perfection.”

And then there were guys like Renzo Rivolta who, after venturing from the refrigerator making business into cars with the tiny BMW Isetta in the fifties, decided to make a grand touring coupe.

Not using an Italian engine, of great complexity and cost, but an off the shelf Chevy V8 with an iron block, iron heads, overhead valves, low tech but high horsepower.

The result? A four seater coupe that can be out there on the same race course as a Ferrari or Maserati four-seater and blow their doors off. And if you live in the U.S. and blow a part, hey, you stop at Auto Zone or the nearest junkyard. Try that with your Ferrari or Maser.

The first Rivolta was shown in the Turin show in 1962. If you dig into its history you find that it actually was a phoenix arising out of the ashes of a British project called the Gordon Keeble.

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