Good Days And Bad Days - In Pictures

by Mike -

The day this first picture was taken was certainly a good day for Stephen Mitchell as he visited the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris recently to see The Art of the Automobile (some of Ralph Lauren's cars).

Or, more precisely, to see this special Ferrari 250 GTO that Stephen once owned. But when he owned this 250 GTO it spent its time on the roads of Southern California or on a race track, not in a museum.

Stephen is on the right, in the middle is Jeanetta Dumouchel, a producer, with Stephen, on the Carrera Panamericana documentary film and Marc Sonnery on the left, author of Rebel Rebel: Breadvan: The Most Recognizable Ferrari in the World

You can read Stephen's account of this day here.

A good day below for Renzo Rivolta, president of Iso, when the truck is loaded with new Iso Rivolta GTs on the way to their owners.

Not a good day for racing an Iso Grifo A3/C (the predecessor to the Bizzarrini GT 5300).

A good day racing an Iso Rivolta GT.

Trouble at the track for two Bizzarrinis.

John Lennon looks over an Iso and later buys one or maybe three. Good for the salesman, for Iso and John Lennon.

Fires and cars do not mix well, especially a Lamborghini Miura.

Anytime there is a silver Bizzarrini in the picture is good day.

Now wouldn't you like to be this guy (Lord Lichfield) in 1968 somewhere in London, Chelsea I think,  sitting on the trunk lid (boot) of his Iso Grifo?

I do not think this Ferrari is supposed to be on the sand bank.

Anytime you are ahead of a 250 GTO in a race that would be a good day. This Iso A3/C in the lead looks like the same car that crashed in one of the pictures above but I believe it is a different race.

Click on the images for a larger view.

Many good days involve cool cars.

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1966 GM Electrovair II Electric Car – Why Did They Stop?

by Mike - 

In 1966 General Motors experimented with an electric car based on a 1966 Corvair called the Electrovair II. It was powered by a silver zinc battery pack producing 532 volts located in the front and the rear.

Silver zinc was chosen because it delivered high peak power but the batteries wore out after 100 recharges and were expensive. The batteries powered a 115 horsepower AC-Induction motor that produced about the same performance as a gas powered Corvair except that the range was only 40-80 miles. The top speed was 80 MPH.

The Electrovair II weighed 800 pounds more than a regular Corvair and there were gauges on the dashboard for monitoring volts and amps.

This was just an experiment but one has to wonder where would they be if GM had continued developing electric car technology since 1966?

These pictures were taken at the Marin Sonoma Councours d'Elegance on May 15, 2011 by Michael Menetto.

Click on the images for a larger view.

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BON VOYAGE, GRIFO! - A Guest Article About A Sold Grifo

by Martyn Schorr

If you ask boaters what were the two happiest days in their lives, you’re likely to hear: The day I bought my boat and the day I sold it!

Martyn Schorr and Iso Grifo No. 047

That’s usually not the case with car guys, however. When we fall in love with a specialty car, it’s often a long-term relationship. The more special the car, the more passion, and sometimes the relationship can last for decades. 

That best describes my relationship with a 1967 Iso Grifo (#047) that I purchased new as a leftover in 1969. And, after 42 years, sold last week.

I knew little about the car, even less about Iso in Bresso (Milano) Italy when I test-drove a 427/435 tri-power Corvette-engined Grifo for CARS Magazine in 1968. It was love at first power shift and all I knew was that I wanted one.

It was as powerful as a big-block Corvette, but that was where the similarities ended. Its mag wheels were really magnesium and the stunning body was hand fashioned of steel and aluminum.  It was a real European GT sports car and it felt, handled and stopped like nothing else I had ever driven.

The owner turned me on to a leftover Grifo that I bought.

Over 42 years of ownership it has never disappointed. Because of it my wife and I have met interesting people here and abroad through IBOC (Iso Bizzarrini Owners Club), including Piero Rivolta and his family who also live in Sarasota, FL.

The Grifo is a very special car and I always felt special driving it. That included commuting from Long Island to my office in Manhattan when I was Editor of CARS. I learned later that the Grifo was a handbuilt car with hand-formed body panels. There was no tooling as there was for other Iso models.

Unlike boaters who celebrate when they “dump” their boat, there was no celebrating when Exotic Car Transporters came to my garage yesterday and scooped up my Grifo. I had it show-prepped by Sharbel Murrilo and his team at Prestige Auto Specialists in Miami for a show in Sarasota last month and it looked and smelled new. It looked so good I was afraid to drive it!

Now I almost cried as the driver eased my Grifo into the transporter. It’s now on its way to its second owner, a collector/dealer in the UK.

Bon Voyage!

Martyn L. Schorr wrote the book on Baldwin-Motion, Motion Performance: Tales of a Muscle Car Builder (Motorbooks). This Grifo is featured is this book. He is the editor of Car Guy Chronicles and is the Chief Communications Officer of Sarasota Cafe Racers.

The original article in My Car Quest about this one of a kind Iso Grifo is here.

This special Grifo is featured in the July 2011 issue of Octane Magazine.

Click on the images for a larger view.

Jack and tools.

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Bizzarrini GT 1900 Europa - An Unfulfilled Dream

by Mike -

Bizzarrini created a scaled down GT 5300 designed for GM-Opel based on the Opel 1900 platform.

Bizzarrini produced this fiberglass-bodied car as the Bizzarrini GT 1900 Europa. The engine was an inline 4-cylinder 1.9 liter Opel with a power output of 110 hp and a claimed top speed of 128 MPH.

Unfortunately there were approximately only 17 examples of this low cost alternative to the GT 5300 made between 1966 and 1969.

Road & Track wrote in April 1971 "the Bizzarrini GT 1900 Europa is the kind of Opel GT that GM should have built in the first place".

By the time this article was published the Europa was out of production.

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