by Wallace Wyss –
If you were up at the crack of dawn in Malibu the first Sunday of December you saw a sight for sore eyes–a freshly restored Bizzarrini GT5300 Strada. It was sold in France where it has spent most all of its life until being brought to America. There were only seven Bizzarrini Stradas sold new in France.
The driver said it had undergone 2000 hours of restoration. The dealer advertising it before it was sold to the US was Ascott, not to be confused with another car sales company in the UK called Ascot.
The car is chassis number IA3*0281. It is aluminum bodied, one of 70-72 alloy bodied versions. The cars were produced over five years. Production is estimated at between 100 and 149 units (the figure of 133 models is often put forward).
It has a 327 cid Corvette engine. The car was sold new in France in 1967 in Aix-en-Provence, to René Maucort (who ran the Le Roy René sweet-shop, a firm that produces the famous “Calissons” of Aix-en-Provence). The sale was handled by Régis Fraissinet, the manager of the Mondial Auto garage. Fraissinet had a strong bond with Bizzarrini, as he was one of the two drivers of the Iso Grifo at the 1965 edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. A connoisseur of the brand, he was at that time the French dealer in France for the Italian firm.
According to the French dealer the car sported a metallic blue “azzuro” hue with a burgundy-red leather interior. The next owner, Jean-Claude Bajol (from 1987) repainted it red to give it the same colour as a Ferrari GTO (according to him). This was logical for a man (who died in 2011) who was known at the time to be above all a great Ferrari collector. In particular, he owned the Ferrari 250 GT California Spyder of Roger Vadim and a Ferrari 250 GTO (chassis 3451GT, the fifth produced by Ferrari).
The dealer, Ascott Collection, was created in 2014 by Xavier Micheron, specializing in the trade of Historic Race Cars and Classic Road Cars.
The price it was sold for is still being searched by the author but suffice to say $1.5 million USD is in the vicinity.
Let us know what you think in the Comments.
Bizzarrini GT 5300 Strada Art by Wallace Wyss
THE AUTHOR/ARTIST: Wallace Wyss, a fine artist, shows us his work drawing for an oil painting of the car, which will be 20″ x 30.” Availability of art can be answered by writing malibucarart@gmail.com
Photos above by Richard Bartholomew.
Photos from the Ascott Collection are in the slide show below
It is great to see a beautiful Bizzarrini move to California. I hope to see it one day in person.