www.QV500.com - Iso A3/C & Bizzarrini 5300 Part 1: Introduction
 
In the best tradition of small Italian performance car makers, the story of Iso's A3/C and the Bizzarrini 5300 is an exceedingly complicated one that took place over several years and the entire facts of which are still not clear to this day. To set the scene, gifted Tuscan engineer Giotto Bizzarrini was approached by Renzo Rivolta, owner of the Iso car manufacturing concern. Rivolta wanted someone to design and build Iso a flagship GT and having already created Ferrari's 250 GTO, seemed sure Bizzarrini was his man.
   
Known as the Iso Grifo A3/C, Giotto was to be responsible for developing, producing and racing the car from his Bizzarrini Prototipo concern in Livorno and initially things went well. But after eighteen months of collaboration, the two parties went through an acrimonious split that resulted in Bizzarrini acquiring not only the rights to build what had been the Iso A3/C, but enough components to construct fifty more cars. Rivolta meanwhile secured the rights to use the Grifo name for his concurrently produced, Bertone-bodied A3/L. This explains why today we have some outwardly similar models known by a number of alternative and often confusing designations. These included Iso Grifo A3/C, Bizzarrini Grifo, Bizzarrini 5300 GT and Bizzarrini GT America, most of which were available in either Strada or Corsa configurations whilst the Grifo A3/L was an entirely different looking car altogether. Only around a hundred were ever completed between 1963 and '68, making them among the rarest supercars of their era, but nevertheless, they ensured Bizzarrini's name would be remembered as a manufacturer in his own right and not just a genius designer.