With 800 racing cars and around 1000 drivers, the French city once again became the Mecca of historic motor racing this year. Probably the most exclusive party took place every evening in a castle hotel far away from the slopes. Here, early in the morning as well as in the evening, there was an encounter of a special kind. A collection of various Bizzarinni’s gathered here for the hunt for records. And attention. The owners of these special – and valuable racing classic cars – also let it rip off the track. For us, the Bizzarinni’s were the brand of the weekend. It felt like there were more of them on site than ever before. Not only in front of the country castle, but also on the race track, the cars were omnipresent. Here on the race track, from the right, the pairs of lights rush in, crossing and overlapping. Then comes the unique noise cloud of the Le Mans Classic: a symphony of firecrackers, trumpets and mixer screeches. It’s only when they drive by that you can recognize the actors of this wild, noisy horde and assign the engine sound to the racing cars. The gritty, rumbling Chevy V8 of the leading Lola T70; in between, the bright singing of one of the few twelve-cylinder engines such as the Ferrari 312; then the nagging trumpets of the nimble Chevron B8 with BMW four-cylinder, which the seven-liter Corvette only blast after with difficulty. And it doesn’t end at all at the Le Mans Classic until everyone has passed at insane speed, including some Bizzarinni.
There are many bizarre stories surrounding Bizzarrini. Actually, the brand only existed between 1965 and 1968, how many ‘real’ Bizzarrini were created during that time will probably never be determined. Giotto Bizzarrini was one of the last great designers, he could actually do everything, chassis, engines, aerodynamics, design – today you need two engineers and a team of designers for every turn signal lever. Probably never before and never since in the entire history of the automobile have so many important threads come together in one place as with Giotto Bizzarrini. The Italian just couldn’t do the math. His company was always on the verge of ruin, Bizzarrini got involved in sleazy consultants and opaque business dealings – and in September 1968 the ‘Guardia di Finanza’ declared the company insolvent, and in 1969 a court in Livorno declared bankruptcy. Giotto Bizzarrini explains: “Even when I was a child, all I wanted to do was build cars – and I had a new idea every minute. Later, I had to learn that it takes more than a minute to realize these ideas.” However, Bizzarrini mainly worked as a professor at the universities of Pisa and Florence – and today, at the age of 90, he lives in a nursing home near Livorno. Perhaps he will even live to see the Bizzarrini brand resurrected.
Editor’s Pick:
Fast, faster, Lamborghini! Lamborghini’s have to be fast and beautiful. And the Countach looks the most beautiful. No, the car looks fantastic. It’s so nice that even less car-crazy people turn around reverently for it. You can find out more about the real Lamborghini, the Countach, here: https://go-sixt.com/de/classics/lamborghini-countach/
