You remember Bizzarrini right? The Italian sports carmaker best known for making the 5300 GT Strada before flying too close to the sun and fizzling out in 1969? Well, Bizzarrini is back.
The latest iteration of the company is being funded by Rezam Al Roumi who previously was involved when Ford’s sold off Aston Martin in 2007. Al Roumi seems to want to get some of that band back together again, as former Aston CEO Ulrich Bez will be chairman of the new Bizzarrini, and old Aston communications chief Janette Green is joining Bizzarrini as well.
According to Automotive News, the plan is to make limited production cars, and also possibly reproductions of classic Bizzarrinis as well.
“There could be scope for anything, continuation cars, new cars, but whatever we do we will do it properly and slowly and with full respect to the Bizzarrini heritage,” Green told Automotive News Europe. The company will show a prototype of its first car next year, she said.
The cars are likely to be powered by an internal combustion engine and cost over 1 million pounds ($1.33 million), Green said. No decision has been made on a production location.
This is not, of course, the first stab at reviving Bizzarrini, which was founded in the mid-’60s by Giotta Bizzarrini, who was also responsible for the Ferrari 250 GTO. The original Bizzarrini closed in 1969 after betting big on racing and losing, but its cars remain objects of lore, and in 2008 there was a stillborn attempt to revive it. That’s not to mention 1998's Bizzarrini Kjara, which was a hybrid, and 2005's Bizzarrini GTS.
Al Roumi, presumably, has deep pockets, so it’ll be interesting to see where this latest effort goes but it’s rarely a bad thing when someone looks at Italian sports car history and tries to imitate it.