Giotto Bizzarrini was a man of many talents. From developing the chassis of the Alfa Romeo Giulietta to engineering the Ferrari 250 GTO and helping Ferruccio Lamborghini shoehorn a V12 in the 350 GTV, this guy was a bonafide superstar of the automotive industry. Come 1964, the Italian engineer founded his namesake company in the city of Livorno.
Bizzarrini was originally - and primarily - focused on building racing cars. The following year, the Iso Grifo A3/C Prototipi Bizzarrini, driven by French racing drivers Regis Fraissinet and Jean de Mortemart, finished ninth overall at the Le Mans 24 Hours, powered by a 327 small-block Chevrolet V8 engine.
Sometime that year, Fraissinet asked Bizzarrini if he would create a single-seater prototype with the same 5.4-liter engine for hill climb racing. Lo and behold, the Monoposto came into life with 420 horsepower on deck. Of course, the General Motors-designed V8 was modified like crazy to achieve this output. From the less restrictive intake to Weber-sourced carbs and the incredibly beautiful exhaust system, a lot was changed by ol’ man Giotto.
Coupled with a motorsport-spec manual transmission from ZF, the red-painted machine weighs approximately 1,300 pounds (590 kilograms). Instead of talking about the power-to-weight ratio and all that jazz, how about a story about this car’s talent to scare the hell out of a seasoned endurance racer?
Currently exhibited at the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, the Monoposto is joined by a small display panel that reads the following: “It was like a dragster; it was so quick!” Giotto Bizzarrini further recalled that “we took it to the small circuit near Livorno, where Fraissinet tested the car. He pressed the throttle and accelerated for a while, then suddenly stopped. He got out of the car because he was afraid; he couldn’t drive it more.”
Not driven since 2008, the Monoposto was recently listed on Bring a Trailer. Although it attracted 63 bids, the highest being $115k, the reserve wasn’t met. Even though it’s hard to value a unique piece of automotive history like this thriller, a high bid of $115k can be described as lowballing at best.
Sometime that year, Fraissinet asked Bizzarrini if he would create a single-seater prototype with the same 5.4-liter engine for hill climb racing. Lo and behold, the Monoposto came into life with 420 horsepower on deck. Of course, the General Motors-designed V8 was modified like crazy to achieve this output. From the less restrictive intake to Weber-sourced carbs and the incredibly beautiful exhaust system, a lot was changed by ol’ man Giotto.
Coupled with a motorsport-spec manual transmission from ZF, the red-painted machine weighs approximately 1,300 pounds (590 kilograms). Instead of talking about the power-to-weight ratio and all that jazz, how about a story about this car’s talent to scare the hell out of a seasoned endurance racer?
Currently exhibited at the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, the Monoposto is joined by a small display panel that reads the following: “It was like a dragster; it was so quick!” Giotto Bizzarrini further recalled that “we took it to the small circuit near Livorno, where Fraissinet tested the car. He pressed the throttle and accelerated for a while, then suddenly stopped. He got out of the car because he was afraid; he couldn’t drive it more.”
Not driven since 2008, the Monoposto was recently listed on Bring a Trailer. Although it attracted 63 bids, the highest being $115k, the reserve wasn’t met. Even though it’s hard to value a unique piece of automotive history like this thriller, a high bid of $115k can be described as lowballing at best.