One to Buy: ex-works 1965 Bizzarrini 5300 GT Strada / Corsa
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For around 18 months, Giotto Bizzarrini raced the A3/C Grifo thanks to the largesse of Iso boss Renzo Rivolta who had commissioned the car. However, in August 1965, Rivolta terminated the agreement and, as part of the severance deal, Bizzarrini was gifted production rights to the A3/C.
No longer funded by Rivolta, and distracted by the creation of a Group 6 Prototype dubbed the P538, a much reduced competition programme was embarked upon with what became the Bizzarrini 5300 GT.
Just two examples of the 5300 GT were ever campaigned by the Bizzarrini works, the first having been a right-hand drive fibreglass-bodied example built up specifically for competition use. This machine, chassis BA4 0106, was used between April 1966 and June 1967.
The second was chassis IA3 0242, an earlier aluminium-bodied left-hand drive 5300 GT completed during the summer of 1965 which initially served as a development mule.
IA3 0242 was the second to last 5300 GT fitted with an aluminium body fashioned by Carrozzerria BBM in Modena.
During its life, Bizzarrini fitted the car with an array of high performance features to include Weber carburettors, P538-type rack and pinion steering, a short 3.54:1 final drive ratio, bronze instead or rubber suspension bushes and an adjustment system for the De Dion rear axle. A variety of extra cooling solutions were carved from the body which, to accommodate wider 9.5-inch rear wheels, also had its rear fenders flared.
In April 1966, IA3 0242 was registered LI 84127 to another of Bizzarrini’s companies based at the same address as his factory: CMC Vignone Lichio on Via Filippo Venuti in Livorno. That same month, Franco Failli campaigned the car in the Montefiascone Hillclimb. In September, Failli drove IA3 0242 at the Coppa Ciminio Hillclimb.
The car appeared in its ultimate state of tune at the 1967 Mugello GP which was round nine of that year’s World Sportscar Championship and comprised eight laps of a 66km course that weaved through spectacular Tuscan roads. Although hampered by a couple of technical niggles, factory driver Giancarlo Naddeo was classified 46th overall and fifth in the over two-litre Prototype class.
IA3 0242 was sold to its first private owner, Aldo Manna from Savigliano, on September 3rd 1968. At this point it was registered CN 185025. Manna retained the car for a little over eight years, selling the Bizzarrini on January 15th 1977 to Giovanni Giordanengo from Boves di Cuneo who, three months later, sold it on to “MJS” in Sweden. Photographs of the car in a snow-covered landscape taken upon delivery to Sweden are included in its history file.
The consigning owner then became the next owner when he purchased IA3 0242 in 1983. Remarkably, the car has never been registered in Sweden and is accompanied by its Cuneo plates along with the original Italian Libretto issued in 1966.
IA3 0242 is being offered in remarkably well preserved condition as an indisputably authentic ex-works 5300 GT.
