So once again I will reference my most-referenced previous post about Cars We Need To See As Thunderjets. If you scroll down that list, you can see one particular car on there that we may still not have as a slot car, but as of this year, we now have the next best thing!
To quote Dennis Weaver in Duel: “Well its about time, Charlie!” My hats off to Mattel for finally giving us a model of a car I’ve been waiting for in 1:64 since I was but a lad, and even more Kudos for releasing it as Matchbox rather than a Hot Wheels. It would have been great either way, but if you know the story of these cars, you know why its appropriate for Matchbox to have released this one!
So, just in case you don’t know the story…Giotto Bizzarrini was one of many brilliant Italian Engineers of the golden era (1950’s-60’s) who once worked for Ferrari, where he designed this insignificant little car you may have heard about-the Ferrari 250GTO! Bizzarrini was one of the “famous five” engineers who left Ferrari in the so-called “Ferrari night of the Long Knives“, and from there became something of a freelancer, partnering with others to start several very short lived car companies (including ATS and ASA) as well as his own company, Società Autostar, where he did a stint working for Renzo Rivolta. Rivolta owned a little company called Iso, who decided to get into the car business after finding success making refrigerators and other consumer products, and had a go at making high performance luxury cars after his success with his partnership with BMW to produce the Isetta.
While the entire story of the incestuous relationship between all these great men and the companies they ran and and worked for is fascinating, it is far too deep of a story to go into for this blog; so, to cut a long story short, Bizzarrini’s work for Rivolta produced the Iso Grifo, one of the most beautiful GT cars ever made.
The Iso Grifo caused so much excitement upon its release that both Rivolta and Bizzarrini were anxious to put it on the racing track, so GB went to work designing a “competition version” of the Grifo, which was introduced to the world as the “Iso Grifo A3/C,” C standing for “Competizione.” If you look at this car, you’ll see it is almost identical to the Bizzarrini Strada 5300GT, because its essentially the same car, which GB took with him and built under his own name after parting ways with Rivolta and Iso.
That’s a drastic over-simplification of the story, and I encourage any gearhead to read or learn about the rest of the story because it is fascinating! For now, let’s focus on this: The Grifo A3/C AKA Bizzarini Strada 5300GT deserves its place in history not only for being one of the most beautiful cars ever made, but also because it was powered by a Chevy small-block V8, making it the bow-tie answer to the famous Ford-powered sports cars of the era!
Honoring the Lesney Legacy!
So back to our 1:64 world, you’ve already probably figured where I’m going with this: almost everyone (or, at least, everyone who’s going to have any interest in reading this blog!) knows that the Iso Grifo was immortalized by Matchbox in 1968, when they released it as the #14 car in their 1-75 series for that year. To this day, it remains my favorite Matchbox model of all time, just as it was in my childhood. And not just mine; many Matchbox collectors rate it as among the company’s best models, and to date, I own something like 45 castings of it! In fact, it is this car, and the place is occupies in my life and history, that influenced my claim that 14 is my LUCKY NUMBER!
It is this history that makes it appropriate-makes it right-that when Mattel decided to release this car, they did so under the Matchbox name. And it is a beautiful model! Now of course it has a plastic baseplate just like they all do these days, but it also features an opening hood and its presented as a racing car bearing #3, which is the same number the Grifo A3/C ran with at LeMans in 1965, and has also been used on one of the “continuation” exact replicas built in 2022. It has the excellent Matchbox 5-dash mags with the 3-spoke knockoffs that look great no matter what they are on, and that’s about it; they didn’t go hog-wild with decorations, stripes, lightning bolts, and the like; they kept it conservative and real! It might have been more historially accurate had it been presented in “rosso corsa” (racing red), but I think its more attractive painted in this rich darker red, as some real examples are; Bizzarrinis are seen on racing tracks today painted bright blue, bright yellow, silver, white, or even black, so this deep red, while not completely accurate, isn’t inaccurate, and looks fantastic!
This new packaging that Matchbox has started doing over the last couple of years is interesting; I like it well enough as it presents the car in a way that lets you see the car you are actually getting while still paying homage to the idea of a “box.” Unfortunately, its still “sealed” with glue, forcing you to open it by tearing or cutting the flaps, so its still not as cool as the original boxes, but it does give a collector a way to ensure the car he’s buying is “virginal,” I guess; I know that’s a big deal to some collectors. As for myself, I bought 2 of them, one to open, one to remain sealed.
As you can see from several of these pics, the opened model will occupy a position front-and-center on my diorama, lined up with the racing cars about to run next right next to the start/finish gates; it replaces a Hot Wheels model of the Ford GT40 Mk 4, since a copy of that model was already represented elsewhere on the layout. So let’s have a round of applause for the folks @ Mattel for finally giving the world this car in 1:64! I’ve been waiting for it almost all my life!
Giotto Bizzarrini lived a long life, finally shuffling off this mortal coil only last year in May of 2023 at the age of 96. Its fortunate that he lived long enough to see his life’s work fully appreciated, and one can only hope that, as the licensing on the package indicates, he got to see this little model of one of his greatest cars before it hit the market! I’ll be looking forward to new releases in the future, but firsts are almost always the best; if you haven’t grabbed yourself a copy of this one yet, get on it, race fans! This is one model you don’t want to be without!
Great Car and read (and the Lucky 14), whatta history and story about this car and model. I can wholeheartedly agree about the breathtaking beauty, it’s full throttle class and beauty with a performance heart beating under the skin!