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Bright color, radical lines, spectacular unique specimen - the Bizzarrini Manta from 1968 made Italdesign and Giogrio Giugiaro well known.
Photo: Josef Horazny / CTK Photo / imago
What is the most effective way of attracting attention from a newly founded car design company? Logically, with a car that leaves you spit when you look at it. Giorgio Giugiaro and Aldo Mantovani, who founded Italdesign in the spring of 1968 (in the first few months was still called SIRP), presumably also had this idea. By October 30 of the same year, the opening day of the Turin Motor Show, the idea had taken shape. And a spectacularly radical form: Italdesign unveiled the Bizzarrini Manta there - and suddenly had a name in the car world.
The car, painted in the garish shade of "acid green" - some sources also speak of "lime green" or "aqua green" - looks more like a bump than a classic sports car. But only the four wheels are classic on this car. Giorgio Giugiaro, who was just 30 years old at the time and who had previously worked as a designer at Fiat, Bertone and Ghia, turned the previous viewing habits upside down with his first work as an independent design entrepreneur. The silhouette of the car is a continuous, curved line. The front hood, windshield, roof and rear glazing flow smoothly into one another - never before has the so-called one-box design been implemented so consistently.
Under the smooth hump, as the magazine “Motor Trend” reported from Turin in 1968, sits a Bizzarrini racing car, “which took part in the 24 Hours at Le Mans in 1967.” Whether the car's chassis and engine were actually at the endurance classic in Le Mans were in use is disputed by some experts.
What is certain, however, is that Giugiaro acquired a P 538 racing car chassis from the Tuscan sports car manufacturer Bizzarrini in the early summer of '68 in order to build his concept car on it.
Additional window under the windshield
The Bizzarrini Manta is said to have been created within 45 days. The racing origin can still be recognized by the fact that the car is a three-seater: the driver's seat is in the middle, the two passenger seats are set back to the left and right. Because the car is only 1.06 meters high and the windshield is extremely flat, the driver can see practically nothing of the road in front of the car. So that this does not lead to collisions in cities with curbs or at intersections, three slats can be opened directly below the windshield, making the view a little more informative.
It's a clever idea, but this car wasn't about everyday usability anyway.
In the mid-engine position sits a 5.4-liter V8 engine from Chevrolet, which Bizzarrini had equipped with four double carburetors and tickled to an output of 420 hp.
At the world premiere in Turin, however, the car was not ready to drive, they say.
This is said to have been changed later, including during various restorations and repairs.
Celebrated, lost, sold
But even as a pure sculpture, the car fully fulfilled its purpose, namely to catapult the new company Italdesign into the car design sky as a new star.
After the appearance in Turin, the car, in bright red livery, was exhibited at the motor show in Tokyo, then in Los Angeles.
And then suddenly he was gone.
The Bizzarrini Manta was lost on the return transport to Europe and then remained missing for about ten years.
Then in 1980 the car suddenly reappeared at an auction for Italian customs.
The car then changed hands several times, from Italy to Sweden and from there to the USA.
In the meantime, the body was painted silver, and the car has now returned to its original "acid green" color.
Nobody wanted to pay a million dollars
In 2012, the car from "Gooding & Co." in Monterey, California, which is now considered a milestone in car design, was to be auctioned for a price between 1 and 1.5 million US dollars, but there was no interested party.
The car remained in the possession of an American collector.
The Bizzarrini Manta continues to be an inspiration for car designers and a source of amazing stories too.
Allegedly, the GM designer Charles Jordan saw the gorgeous car in Turin in 1968 and made sure that the name "Manta" was used for Opel's new sports coupé two years later.
Italdesign did not have the name protected.
The anecdote sounds too good to be true, however.
Because the Opel parent company General Motors discovered the elegant cartilaginous fish as namesake back in 1962, when the Corvette Stingray (stingray) came onto the market.
The suggestion for the manta, named after the manta ray, probably did not come from Giugiaro.
