A trio of Bizzarrini 5300 SI Spiders will be featured at the 2016 Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance, scheduled for March 11-13 in Amelia Island, Florida. A special class of Italian Bizzarrinis will honor and commemorate the marque’s 50th anniversary.
The shapes that flowed from Giotto Bizzarrini’s mind were sumptuous, efficient and enduring. His most famous work is the eternal Ferrari GTO that was more the creation of a sculptor than an engineer.
Then came Ferrari’s so-called “mutiny of the brains”. Scuderia Ferrari was fresh from its first Formula 1 World Constructors Championship season. They’d won Le Mans and the World Sports Car Championship, too. But, once again, there was blood. A Ferrari 156 “Sharknose” speared into the Monza crowd during the Italian Grand Prix. Its driver and several spectators died. And there was a civil war brewing in the Scuderia.
Inside the Ferrari team, the men who built and raced the cars and won the championships were weary of meddling by Signora Ferrari who, for reasons known only to her, traveled with the Ferrari racing team during that benighted championship season.
Giotto Bizzarrini was one of Ferrari’s “brains” and he paid a high price for Ferrari’s temper. He was among those expelled from the Scuderia during one of the commendatore’s poisonous tantrums. With a family to support, engineer and gifted test driver Bizzarrini created a fast grand touring car that would ultimately bear his name. Just over 100 Bizzarrinis were hand built. They were conceptualized and designed as coupes. Somehow three open-top spyders were created. All three will be reunited at the 21st annual Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance on March 13, 2016.
“When the man who created the Ferrari GTO and the original Lamborghini V-12 engine builds a car and puts his name on it, hard core ‘car guys’ pay close attention,” said Mark Becker, Vice Chairman of the Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance. “Even with Chevy V-8 power that most of us associate with muscle cars, Bizzarrinis have a strong Italian accent. The Bizzarrini 5300 Spyder is so rare that very few hard core Italian car aficionados have even seen one let alone all three of them together.”
The 2016 Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance will be held March 11-13th on the 10th and 18th fairways of the Golf Club of Amelia Island at the Ritz-Carlton, Amelia Island. The show’s Foundation has donated over $2.75 million to Community Hospice of Northeast Florida, Inc. and other charities on Florida’s First Coast since its inception in 1996.
For further information, visit AmeliaConcours.org.
[Source: Amelia Island Concours]
Bizzarini, I remember, must have been, in the mid 60’s, I used to spend lots of time à the CT Thompson race track, Mike Gamino, who used to race his red Ferrari GTO, had sol it &this was at the beginning of the Can AM race series, broght his brand new Bizzarini Can AM spider with the Lamborghini V12 engine located longitudinally, sounded good
but to heavy, not competitive enough. great memories for great moments,
As a matter of facts, Mike Gamino, was Charlie Rainville assistant shop manager, when I started to work at Providence Jake Kaplan’s foreign cars, my first job june 1959!