ONE SPICY SAUSAGE; 1968 BIZZARRINI SPYDER SI.

Byline: JOHN F. KATZ

Having left Ferrari and then the short-lived Automobili Turismo Sport (ATS), Giotto Bizzarrini still longed to build race cars. In 1962, he signed on with Renzo Rivolta, who, having successfully licensed the Isetta bubble car to BMW, now wanted to mass-produce high-performance GTs-"like sausages,'' in Bizzarrini's words. Their four-seat Iso Rivolta mounted Corvette power and Italian running gear in a handsome steel unibody styled by Bertone, as did the two-seat Iso Grifo that joined the line for '64. A Grifo Competizione variant appeared, too, its engine relocated 16 inches rearward and wearing a wantonly voluptuous aluminum body created by draftsman Piero Vanni, refined by Giotto himself and by then-Bertone-designer Giorgetto Giugiaro.

Bizzarrini managed Iso's racing program while selling the Grifo Competizione and, later, a street-tuned version of it called the Grifo Stradale under his own label. His relationship with Rivolta was stormy-far too complex to describe in these few short lines-and was definitely over by 1966. The Grifo Stradale became the GT Strada, as Giotto traded the Grifo name to keep parts flowing from Iso.

Also in 1966, Bizzarrini presented an experimental silver-painted roadster, followed in 1967 by a red targa and a blue T-top; all three were called Spyder SI, for Turinese coachbuilder Stile Italia. A Southern California collector found this T-top in Europe in 1982 and consulted with Bizzarrini on its restoration. Don and Diane Meluzio have owned it since 2006.

As the Spyder is primarily a show car, we drove Don's ...