In 1965, Giotto Bizzarrini, a former Ferrari engineer who founded his own car company, took his creation and entered it in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. After finishing first in class and ninth overall, Bizzarrini drove the car back home to Northern Italy.
That gave the company a shot in the arm, but only for a while. It folded four years later after building about 137 cars. There have been several attempts to reconstitute the company since then, but today it’s back with much more solid footing, under ownership from the Pegasus Brands, backed by Kuwaiti money.
Last week, the new Bizzarrini delivered its first recreation of the car that raced at Le Mans. It’s number one of 24 Bizzarrini 5300 GT Corsa Revivals that Bizzarrini will build in its British factory. Each of the 24 continuation models is finished in Bizzarrini Rosso Corsa, with white numbered roundels so each client can choose his or her unique number to be hand-applied to their car.
This livery, and indeed, the total number of cars being built, is an homage to the 5300 GT Corsa chassis #0222, the Le Mans car. Built using the original blueprints and utilising components from original suppliers with the input of experts originally involved in the 5300 GT project, it is as representative of the original as possible, while conforming to modern safety standards.
The hand-built vehicles use a lightweight single-piece composite body over a steel frame. Inside, the two seats are protected by a six-point roll cage. Power comes from a “period specific” 5.3-litre V8 with Weber 45 DCOE carbs, developing over 400 horsepower to give a power to weight ratio (the weight being around 1230kg) comparable with a “modern-day supercar.”
The revived brand is charging customers around £1.65m, plus VAT, for each of the hand-built cars, which is close to double what you’d have to pay now for an original, albeit less-exclusive, example. Worth it? 24 collectors must think so.
This article was originally published on Hagerty US.
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