The Quick, The Crashed, The Lost And The Found Bizzarrini GT 5300

by Mike Gulett –

Recently I watched the Clint Eastwood movie The Eiger Sanction and noticed, again, the lime gold Bizzarrini GT 5300 in the background, placed there by the owner, stunt driver Carey Loftin.

A friend of mine (a long time Bizzarrini GT 5300 owner) who occasionally hung out with Carey Loftin (the movie stunt man) and Max Balchowsky (the racecar builder) told me that it was impossible to tell who owned which car because Loftin and Balchowsky would trade off cars depending on their mood and maybe the condition of the car.

Sometime in the late 1960s or early 1970s this friend was driving one of Loftin’s Bizzarrini GT 5300s (it is believed Loftin owned 5 or 6 Bizzarrini GT 5300s over the years) heading north on California Highway One just south of Big Sur one day when a driver, who apparently was not familiar with the winding road, came around the corner across the center line.

The Bizzarrini had to move quickly and unfortunately kissed the hillside with the nose of the Bizzarrini. My friend is lucky he was driving north rather than south or else he could have been forced off a Big Sur cliff which is several hundred feet above the Pacific Ocean.

The Bizzarrini was drivable and my friend drove it all the way back to Balchowsky’s shop in Hollywood from Big Sur.

Carey Loftin drove his cars fast and he had a few speeding tickets in his day. There is also an unsubstantiated story about one of Loftin’s Bizzarrinis driving over a cliff on Highway One in Southern California and being destroyed.

The Lost & Found Bizzarrini GT 5300 Chassis No. IA3*0258

There may have been more than one Bizzarrini GT 5300 that was crashed heavily in California back in the ’60s or ’70s. I was contacted a few years ago by someone in Northern California who bought a Bizzarrini years ago that was reportedly crashed off a cliff in Southern California but he sold it without any details of this crash.

Bizzarrini No. 0258, one of Loftin’s cars, was nearly destroyed after a crash so bad that it was sent to the wreaking yard for metal scrap reclaim in the late 1960s.

Carey Loftin loved to take his own cars to the movie set he was working on and make them either an extra in the background (like in The Eiger Sanction and Bullitt) or put them right in the middle of the action. He put Bizzarrini No. 0258 in the middle of the action in the Disney movie “The Love Bug”.

This Bizzarrini was the No. 35 racecar lined up on the front row next to the yellow Thorndyke Special (portrayed by an Apollo GT). If you look closely at the still image from the movie you can see unusual one-off bumpers on the front of the Bizzarrini No. 35 racecar. There were two Bizzarrini GT 5300s in “The Love Bug”, the other one was dark in color, did not have these unique bumpers and carried the race number 36.

It is easy to spot Bizzarrini GT 5300 No. 0258 because it is the only one, as far as I know, that has these unique front and rear bumpers. It is possible these bumpers were for “homologation purposes” in the USA according to one source. I asked Jack Koobs de Hartog (the late Bizzarrini history expert) about these unique bumpers and was as puzzled as I was.

I do not know who wreaked this Bizzarrini or exactly when it was wreaked but it was in the scrap yard being dismantled when someone who knew what it was spotted it and saved it from complete destruction (oh happy day). With the best of intentions this savior was not able to resurrect this Bizzarrini after more than 40 years of the broken frame and parts sitting in his garage, including the rear bumper but not the front bumpers.

Bizzarrini No. 0258 found after four decades!

Another friend of mine found Bizzarrini No. 0258 a few years ago and bought it. With a little help from a couple of California friends he was able to get a title and have it shipped to Germany where it is now undergoing a full resurrection.

Apparently when Carey Loftin sold his Bizzarrinis he delivered boxes of parts with them (or maybe it was Max Balchowsky) but not necessarily the parts that came from that particular car. The new owner of Bizzarrini No. 0258 has found parts that belong to No. 0258 in the possession of two different owners of Loftin Bizzarrinis and he was able to acquire these parts and reconnect them with their original car. This includes the steering wheel and the one-off front bumpers.

The new owner of No. 0258 writes,

This is what I believe to be true about No. 0258:


Bizzarrini No. 0258 was originally silver with a black interior and was in a very bad crash in Southern California in the late 1960s. Loftin’s family told me that Carey Loftin did not crash the Bizzarrini. Others from that era have said it was crashed in the desert when the actors were messing around racing cars after the filming of “The Love Bug”. Someone else said it was stolen and the two guys who stole it died in the crash. I really don’t know which version is true; but I can well believe that it was the desert thing, because Carey´s family have told me stories about how Carey and his buddies Steve McQueen, Max Balchowski and many of the other actors and stunt guys did that stuff to blow off steam!


There are a few questions I have about Bizzarrini No. 0258:

1. Who crashed it?

2. Why does it have those unattractive bumpers?

3. Is there any truth to the “homologation purposes” in the USA for the bumpers?

I look forward to seeing Bizzarrini No. 0258 back on the road after so many years.

There are three photos at the GettyImages web site (shown below) that clearly show Bizzarrini GT 5300 No. 0258 at what is believed to be Max Balchowski’s shop. These photos are dated March 28, 1967 and appear to be taken before the movie “The Love Bug” was made. The movie was released in 1968. My thanks to Mike Clarke for finding these images.

Comparison of the bumpers on No. 0258 to No. 0256

My former Bizzarrini GT 5300, No. 0256, is only two chassis numbers away from No. 0258 discussed here. One would think they would be similar and from the photos I have seen they do appear to be very similar except for the bumpers.

I made my Bizzarrini No. 0256 available to my friend from Germany, who was recreating Bizzarrini No. 0258 from the chassis up, so he could take measurements and photos to try and duplicate No. 0256 as close as possible because we all assumed it would be very close to No. 0258 except for the bumpers.

Below are photo comparisons of the bumpers between No. 0258 and No. 0256.

It looks like the parking lights have been moved closer to the wheels on No. 0258.

Let us know what you think in the Comments.

Portions of this article were first published in June 2015.