Bizzarrini (originally called Società Autostar) was an automotive manufacturer in the 1962 founded by Giotto Bizzarrini. The company was started in Italy and built a very small number of race and road cars. Before we go through the cars here's a little bit on Giotto. Giotto was born in 6 June 1926 in Quercianella, Italy.
Bizzarrini's first venture into the car world was with Alfa Romeo as a test driver. He was rated highly and was an integral part to the company, so much so that he was head hunted by Ferrari in 1957. After joining Ferrari, Bizzarrini's responsibility eventually increased until he became development chief at Ferrari. During his time at Ferrari he worked on the almighty Ferrari 250 GTO.
He eventually left the company in 1961 to help start ATS (Automobili Turismo e Sport). ATS was a company formed after a dispute about Enzo Ferrari's wife (seriously, yes). Ferrari's chief engineer, manager, sales manager and Bizzarrini gave Enzo an ultimatum demanding the dismissal of Enzo's wife from the company. As you can tell that didn't go so well and ATS was formed. A year later Giotto decided to start his own company, Bizzarrini. It was fairly successful, producing some of the most sort after cars of the time:
5300 GT Strada - The first being the 1966 Bizzarrini 5300 GT Strada. It looks a little Ferrari like, but we can let him off because he was involved in the design of a few iconic Ferrari's.
1900 GT Europa - Which was based on the Opel 1900 platform (commissioned by GM) and changed to look more like the beautiful 5300GT.
P538S - The final car was the Bizzarrini P538S, P for posterior (turns out Bizzarrini was a bottom man), 53 for the 5.3L Corvette engine it used, 8 for the fact that it used a V8 engine and S for sports car. This car was used at Le Mans but was quite unreliable, resulting in two DNF's.
Sadly it was declared bankrupt in 1969, which ended Bizzarrini's days as an automobile manufacturer, but not as an automobile designer or engineer.
Bizzarrini is still busy to this day. He has been building replica P538's Since 2008. He has been teaching at working with Roma University developing advanced projects and designing, building and developing his own sport cars. In 2012 Professor Giotto Bizzarrini was given the Honoris Causa Degree in Industrial Design.
Sources:
ISO and BIZZARRINI Gold Portfolio 1962–1974. Brookland Books.
Winston Goodfellow: Iso Rivolta, The Man, The Machines. Motorbooks International 2001
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