Design Critique of a Classic: The Bizzarrini GT5300 Strada

The author tells me he used to think “What good are Bob Cumberford’s design critiques on cars made decades ago if it’s too late for the automaker to change the design?”

Then he had an epiphany of sorts and realized that people want to read what made a classic design so inspirational. They like it but can’t put their finger on why they like it.

As a former owner of a Bizzarrini GT 5300 Strada I do not agree with all that Wyss writes. I am happy to have him express his opinions here but I have added footnotes to share my opinions and some facts. Footnotes will be designated by brackets on each side of a number [x] – see the corresponding footnotes at the end of the article.

Here is the Wyss take on the Bizzarrini GT 5300 Strada.

Mike Gulett, Editor

by Wallace Wyss –

The Bizzarrini was conceived of by Iso consultant Ing. Giotto Bizzarrini first as the Iso Rivolta A3/C Grifo, made by Iso to a body design by Giorgetto Giugiaro, then working at Carrozzeria Bertone. There was a street version, the A3/L which became the Iso Grifo GL, and a race version A3/C which eventually became the Bizzarrini GT 5300. This critique is confined to the production GT 5300 Strada (the street version of the A3/C). Are we confused yet?

The way the car got to be branded Bizzarrini was that Renzo Rivolta, owner of Iso, disliked his sports car to be so low, not fit for businessman use, so he had Giorgetto Giugiaro of Bertone design a higher sitting car, more comfortable, and made of steel at one third the cost of the alloy body of the A3/C.

Bizzarrini, wanted to leave so they parted ways, but Bizzarrini had fortuitously trade marked the Grifo name so he only gave it up when Renzo gave him the A3/C design, which he was no longer going to make anyway. Renzo sold over 400 of the steel-bodied Iso Grifo GLs so he had made the right choice for him and for Iso. And Bizzarrini got to make over 100 GT 5300 Stradas under his own name before his empire collapsed, so the result of the “divorce” was that the enthusiast world got two great Italian marques out of one!

Design Critique

FRONT The front headlamps, admittedly, are from Ferrari inspiration where Bizzarrini worked for many years but the clever touch was how wide and luxuriant the headlight chrome is-it makes a difference when the chrome surround is one inch wide as opposed to half an inch on the Intermeccanica Italia.

And Bizzarrini snuck into the US before the headlight laws took effect because once you remove the plexiglass bubbles it de-masculates the car just as Intermeccanica Italias were sold with and without plexi bubbles but look far less exciting without the chrome headlight surrounds.

The grille is interesting because it is so minimalist, there is no grille surround. Instead nothing more than a chrome bumper with bodywork above with only a mailbox sized slit on each side of the center. Most of the air is taken in below the bumper. [1]

SIDE Going out on a limb here but the side view is one of the greatest sports car shapes in the 20th century because it gave new meaning to the phrase “low slung.” The angle of the rear windscreen is as far as you can go and still see out of it. The front windscreen is also angled as far as you can probably legally go. The scooped out air tunnel on the side of the rear fenders is also a steal from racing Ferraris but done well. The door handles are Fiat 850 derived but minimalist again. [2]

The flat surface of the side of the rear bumper is a good touch, separating it from the normal blade look. The vertical side vents are another stroke of genius–not grates, not perforations but two vertical slots surrounded by luxuriant chrome. [3] The “handwritten” style of chrome on the side of the roof a bit Hollywood but an obsession of Italian designers at the time. Nobody did it better than Lamborghini on his first prototype where his whole name was “written” out handwriting style in chrome.

The Cobra 289 style additional side vents are a little after thoughtish, as if he had seen them on Cobras and thought why not. [3] The flat sides of the body between the wheel cutouts always bothered me, why couldn’t they roll them under? [4] I think when Salvadore Diomante made some Bizzarrini Stradas after the factory closed, he added rolled under side panels where detachable rockers are on Detroit cars.

REAR Not sure what the two grates above the rear trunk lid are venting from. Maybe they vent air from passenger compartment if you drive with the windows open? That would prevent the rear window blowing out. But the grates have too wide a surround and look sort of bathroom-ish. [5]

The car has no rear spoiler, though the Daytona coupes and Aston Martin DB racers proved by that time they were necessary. Maybe the Kamm effect tail was sufficient to make a spoiler unnecessary. [6] The small round taillights are minimalist (which I define is “no more than is needed”) and don’t need chrome surrounds.

INTERIOR I know Giugiaro liked the gauges in a row his Maserati Ghibli for Ghia for instance but that was the second series Bizzarrini. The first ones had a horrible dash idea of gauges stuck down in little caves on the dash. The interior is a big let down, after the sophistication of the exterior, like meeting a beautiful girl who can’t cook (I know, I know, cooking isn’t everything). [7]

One tribute to how good the original was designed is that no one trying to revive it had captured the essence of the original production car. All they come up with is the same general shape but everything is wrong, an insult to the original.

IN SUM The GT 5300 Strada is a tremendous tribute to Giugiaro that, like his De Tomaso Mangusta for Ghia, his design has stood the test of time well. It’s a good argument (I know Detroit designers don’t like to hear it) for the argument that one man with consummate taste should do the whole car bumper to bumper. I would even say the small mistakes (like the industrial-looking rear deck grates) are more likely the failure of suppliers than the designer. The suppliers just couldn’t do his original design with such a small order. The result was like ordering a fine hand tailored suit but having it arrive with cheap buttons.

When I saw the blue Bizzarrini GT5300 Strada arrive in Malibu at the crack of dawn on Dec. 8th, I felt it made a stronger design statement than almost any of the vaunted supercars of the last few years with their fins, vents, scoops, wings, yadda yadda. They are all trying too hard to look macho when the GT5300 Strada does it so simply and effortlessly. [8]

If Giugiaro had quit car design cold after the GT 5300 Strada he still would be recognized as the major car designer of the 20the Century.

THE AUTHOR: Author of 18 car books, Wyss has been a guest lecturer at the Art center College of Design. His oil portrait of a Delahaye hangs in the Mullin Museum. He is presently making two oil portraits of the Bizzarrini GT 5300 Strada.

Footnotes by Mike Gulett

[1] Most of the air is taken in below the front bumper helped out by two electric fans in front of the radiator controlled by one of the toggle switches on the dashboard. The mechanical fan sits near the middle of the engine bay and is likely of no use because it is so far away from the radiator. The race cars had the mechanical fan removed because it was unnecessary weight and drag on the engine. There are also two air intakes on the hood near the front facing toward the driver.

The chrome headlight surrounds were removed by some owners due to personal preference and naturally they were not used on race cars.

[2] The author is referring to the doors handles on the Series 2. The Series 1 door handles are beautiful sculptures. See the photo.

[3] All vents on the GT 5300 are there for a purpose, not for looks.

[4] The rocker panels are not rolled under likely because each one contains a 7.5 gallon fuel tank in addition to the 20 gallon fuel tank behind the passenger compartment.

[5] These two vents just below the rear window allow air to exhaust from under the car just behind the inboard brakes. There are funnels directing air over the brake discs. This allows for the air to flow up from under the car and possibly pulling down the read end.

[6] The original owner of my former GT 5300 Strada was Ken Phillips who designed and had made a front air dam that pushed the front end down at speed because he told me “at about 150 MPH the front end gets light”. His front air dam solved that problem.

Bizzarrini GT 5300 Strada with the Ken Phillips air dam

[7] The original dash board is now accepted by most people as the most beautiful, functional and elegant. It was modeled after Ferrari race cars. The three gauges directly in front of the driver are the main items that a race driver wants to see: the oil temperature, oil pressure and engine coolant temperature. The other gauges: tachometer, speedometer and gas fuel level gauge were located to the right on the dashboard. And the ignition switch is to the left of the steering wheel like a Le Mans race car.

At least one car journalist complained about this layout in a test drive report which prompted Giotto Bizzarrini to change the dashboard layout and place the tachometer and speedometer in front of the driver with the other gauges over to the right. He also added wood veneer and placed the ignition switch in the steering column to the right of the steering wheel.

Bizzarrini GT 5300 Strada Series 1 Dashboard

Bizzarrini GT 5300 Strada Series 2 Dashboard

[8] Yes indeed I could not have said it better myself. Many times I drove my Bizzarrini GT 5300 Strada onto a show field and watched people stop and stare. Some even followed me onto the field and surrounded the car before I had a chance to unpack.

Concorso Italiano in 2010 before the gates opened

Bizzarrini GT 5300 Strada at The Quail, A Motor Sport Gathering in 2012

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