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 Coming to Grifo
An explanation of how the Iso Grifo supercar
came to be, the following has been adapted from
Winston Goodfellow's new book, ISORIVOLTA: The
Men, The Machines.
The production Grifo is introduced to the press at Monza in August of 1965.
As the popularity and production of gran turismos neared their zenith, one type of design came to epitomize style and glamour in the Swinging '60s more than any other - the berlinetta. Translated literally, the term means "small sedan" in Italian, but as time passed it became commonly used to
describe what Americans call the fastback.
The berlinetta may well have been the shape that brought Italian styling to the world at large. Tom Tjaarda, an American who went to Italy at the end of the '50s and created beautiful designs for Ghia, Pininfarina and others, says this was the look that caused him to move across the Atlantic. "The berlinetta," he recounts today from Turin, "inspired me at a very young age to become enthusiastic for automotive design. (Certain) Ferraris, Lancias and Alfa Romeos...displayed beautiful shapes, sensitive surface development and proportions which even today, although dated, still look
right. This was (truly) Italian design, and it came from their cultural heritage."
The Shape
The first inklings of the classic berlinetta shape can be seen in a handful of one-off streamlining exercises by several Italian coachbuilders in the mid-1920s. As the theme progressed in the 1930s with the disappearance of cycle fenders and running boards, this teardrop shape eventually evolved into a nascent berlinetta form with which Bertone, Boneschi, Touring, Ghia and others began to experiment. Touring may have been the teardrop's most prolific proponent during this period. It was a theme they used on a number of Alfa Romeo, Fiat and Lancia chassis from 1934 through 1936, and one that finally congealed for them on the Alfa Romeo 8C 2300MM that participated at Le Mans in 1937. Touring's ideas reached their prewar apogee in 1940 with the stunning berlinetta body on BMW's Mille Miglia-winning 328.
But when Italy entered WWII on June 10, 1940, all the carrozzerias were forced to end production of these specials. Over the next five years they manufactured and supplied military hardware as demands dictated, and with their creativity stifled, very few new designs were constructed.
Thus, when Italy's civilian industrial activity began waking again in 1946, it was no surprise that the berlinetta reappeared just one year later. Since the Touring BMW had been so successful right before the war, the carrozzeria continued with that shape almost immediately, showing it on a Bristol 401 and a Fiat 6C 1500D in 1947.
But while Carrozzeria Touring and many others experimented with the still-evolving design, most important in bringing the berlinetta shape to the fore was Carrozzeria Pinin Farina. This firm, which would officially change the spelling of its name to Pininfarina in 1961, was founded in 1930 by Battista "Pinin" Farina while still in his mid-30s. Over the years it would become one of Italy's biggest styling houses, and the philosophy behind this rise was simple: "It was Pininfarina who formulated the law that a motorcar body should have, first, elegance of line, second, comfort, and third, good penetration - an efficient aerodynamic shape," reported the respected journalist Ken Purdy in 1964.
Pinin, as Farina was known, started his career at his brother Giovanni's coachbuilding firm, Stabilimenti Farina, in 1910. In 1934 and 1935 Pinin Farina exhibited two modified Lancia Asturas called Aerodinamicas - both 2-door, 4-seat coupes with rounded and stream-lined rear sections - and in 1936 these were followed up by the Lancia Aprilia-based Berlinetta Aerodinamica. This time a pure 2-seater, the Berlinetta's long, steeply raked roofline tapered all the way to the rear of the body, ending in one clean, smooth curve. In this form the lightened, streamlined styling exercise cleared 160 kph - substantially faster than a stock Aprilia.
Pinin Farina continued the theme on several more Lancias through 1939 and then, after the war, began pushing the design further than any other stylist. At the carrozzeria's first official postwar showing, Geneva 1947, it startled the world with the wild Maserati A61500 Berlinetta Speciale, a radical new coupe sporting a long hood, hidden headlights and a sloping, elegant roofline inset with a plexiglass
rear window.
But while the A61500 experiment has largely been forgotten, Pinin Farina's next berlinetta, the Cisitalia 202, has not. Indeed, if ever a single car has represented a new era of automotive styling, this is it. In essence, the 202 was an arrival point at which all of Pinin Farina's previous berlinetta ideas came to fruition. Simple, elegant and beautifully proportioned, it debuted in September of 1947 at Italy's Villa d'Este Concours and just four years later was chosen for the New York Museum of Modern Art's exhibition entitled "8 Automobiles." The MOMA catalogue said, "The Cisitalia's body is slipped over its chassis like a dust jacket over a book," and latr this design would become a permanent exhibit: The berlinetta's fame was assured.
 Clockwise from top: Prewar Alfa 8C 2300 by Touring;
1955 Alfa Romeo Sportiva by Bertone;
Pinin Farina and his 1964 Ferrari 275GTB;
Cisitalia 202 of 1947.
Gathering Speed
With the berlinetta's impact now obvious, suddenly all of Italy's manufacturers seemed to be interested in cashing in on the theme. The "streamline shape" soon replaced the roadster or spyder as the bodystyle of choice on which to showcase a company's or designer's talent. In 1948 Pinin Farina continued the evolution with the production Maserati A61500 and Lancia Aprilia, while the Anderloni family's Carrozzeria Touring followed their great success styling open barchettas on the 166, 195 and 212 Ferrari chassis with closed berlinettas derived from these designs.
Vignale, Ghia and others quickly followed suit, but Pinin Farina remained the popular favorite. The latter firm's position was guaranteed when it became the coachbuilder of choice for Enzo Ferrari in 1952: Pinin Farina's numerous Ferraris of the 1950s culminated in the dual-purpose Berlinetta 250SWB that debuted at the Paris Auto Show in 1959. For years afterward, the expression "It looks like a Ferrari" really meant "It looks like a Pinin Farina berlinetta."
Not that Pinin Farina's clean, uncluttered elegance set the direction for all carrozzerias. Bertone, for example, sought a new direction with the Berlinetta Aerodinamica Tecnica series - the BATs - built on Alfa Romeo 1900 Sprint platforms. These were wild and extreme compared to anything else the '50s had to offer, and the first, BAT 5, was the sensation of Turin's 1953 show. The sensuously be-winged BAT 5 was succeeded by BAT 7 and BAT 9 over the next two years, at which point Bertone also showed a gorgeously toned-down berlinetta based on the BAT form called the Alfa Romeo Sportiva.
Only the Thrill, a Touring fastback that clothed a Pegaso Z102 in 1953, came close to matching the sheer audacity of the BATs. Still, other houses continued to develop the berlinetta shape in their own unique directions.
Through all of this action, the berlinetta rage only gathered momentum as the 1960s unfolded. Every Italian GT builder of consequence used the fastback design for their flagship models, while outside of Italy, Aston Martin (DB4), Jaguar (E-Type Coupe) and Chevrolet (1963 Corvette Coupe) followed suit. Before the end of the decade, more affordable models such as the 2nd-generation Mustang, Triumph GT6 and Saab Sonnet would use the shape, and even some downright mundane cars - the Rambler Marlin, Ford Galaxie and others - would be jazzed up with a fashionable berlinetta roofline.
Enter Grifo
It seems that none of the berlinetta's allure, momentum or marketability was lost on the Iso company and its advisors, for on 27 October 1963, the Turin Auto Show saw the debut of one of the greatest berlinetta designs of all time: the Iso Grifo. Two versions, in fact, were exhibited, a luxurious berlinetta for the street designated Iso A3/L Grifo and a second intended purely for competition, the Iso A3 Grifo. Over time the latter would become known as the Grifo A3/C or Corsa, while the A3/L would go on to fame as a production car.
It is therefore natural to assume that Iso's most popular and famous model - the sensuous Grifo - came to pass because the company's leaders recognized that the berlinetta was the wave of the
future. Natural, but entirely incorrect.
"(The Grifo) was originally the idea of Giotto Bizzarrini," states Pierluigi Raggi, who was Iso's chief technician during the heyday of the company. "He came from Ferrari, where they built sports cars, (and) a side of Ferrari always existed in him." Because of this, Bizzarrini had always pushed company- owner Renzo Rivolta to create a pure sports car alongside the firm's existing 4-place Iso Rivolta GT. "But Rivolta at first didn't want to hear about it," Raggi continues. "He was already losing money on...the GT, and wasn't too keen to make a car that was at all similar." But if Bizzarrini was nothing else, he was persistent - perhaps excessively so. From Day One, the engineer constantly hammered on the idea of building a 2-seat companion to the GT.
And there were additional pressures. It was also "a decision of the times," recalls Raggi today. "(In the 2+2) we now had a car for the family - for the father with the wife and children who didn't want to announce he liked to go fast. (But we also got) some requests from clients for a 2-seat sports car. This was for the father (only), not the family."
Despite the boss' reticence, Raggi and Bizzarrini started brainstorming on their own. "At first Bizzarrini wanted to do a mid-engine design (based on) the existing chassis," Raggi explains. "While this was the most attractive solution, there would have been problems in cooling the engine. Also, in the driver's compartment there would have been excessive heat and tremendous noise. The (earlier Iso bubblecar) Isetta taught me...the first thing that I should offer in a car is comfort to the passengers, and that mechanical components shouldn't compromise this. If they do, there is no reason for making the car." Thus, Raggi rejected the mid-engine design and began looking for a compromise between Renzo Rivolta's hardline refusal to create a 2-seat Iso and Bizzarrini's desire for a pure racer. He proposed creating a simple shortened version of the platform-chassis Iso Rivolta GT, reducing the wheelbase from 105.5 inches
to 96.5.
Disegno di Bertone
Nuccio Bertone was made aware of Raggi and Bizzarrini's idea, but he also learned that
Rivolta was against it. "Bertone was very unhappy when he heard," continues Raggi. "(He) wanted to make a car for the next Turin Auto Show..., for it was important to him to have a new model there. But (Renzo) Rivolta now became angry, stating `I have to make production.... I can't make new models every year to make a nice show for everyone: This doesn't get anything completed.'"
In fact, Rivolta was wise to be concerned about spreading his resources too thinly. He wanted to concentrate on perfecting the GT and increasing its sales, and felt the development of a new model might hinder this. Thus it was only Bertone's continued interest that finally pushed the Grifo into becoming a reality. Raggi recalls that Bertone volunteered to design and build the car on his own if Iso would merely supply a rolling chassis and mechanical components. The designer even offered to sell the car when its show days were over to help recoup its costs. With an offer like that, Rivolta could only acquiesce: Iso and Bertone would have their 2-seat showcar.
But Bizzarrini still pushed for a pure sports-racer, and ultimately two chassis were constructed to create two different types of Grifo. "Bizzarrini wanted to move the motor and make everything closer to the car's center (for) better stability," Raggi reminds us, while "I always had in mind the comfort of the people, and thus liked things more spread out. On the street car we came to a compromise, but for his idea Bizzarrini wanted things even closer together. He would say, `It is a racing car; if the driver is cramped,
it doesn't matter.' Even if he had a hot motor next to his legs, Bizzarrini felt it was important that the car went faster."
But here the principals' accounts begin to diverge. According to Raggi, the street berlinetta came first: The first chassis was built at Iso and sent to Bertone to design and build as he saw fit, and this was the car from which Bizzarrini was inspired to build his racer. To do that he got a production chassis from Iso, shortened it at his own Autostar shop at Livorno and collaborated with Bertone and Giugiaro on the body, which was ultimately manufactured by the small Sports Cars Modena company.
Using the A3/L as a reference point, Raggi continues, Bizzarrini moved everything closer to the center on his own car. The competition version came into Iso's Bresso factory at the last minute, and "There wasn't even enough time to do a coat of paint. So Bizzarrini decided to put a gloss on the aluminum body with a lot of small swirlmarks: He recommended getting a cork, putting it in a pair of pliers and moving the pliers around in small circles, like buffing out paint. I really didn't think it would work, but in fact it worked very well." This version of events is backed up by the fact that Bizzarrini's A3 competition car did indeed appear at Turin devoid of paint and finish work, evidence of its own development having lagged behind the
road car's.
In the end, Pierluigi Raggi is succinct in his recollection of the first
Grifo's birth: "It was a joint effort between Iso and Bertone. Iso supplied the parts and Bertone did (the car)."
Iso's main bankroll came from a fantastically successful line of scooters and small motorbikes in the 1950s, most in the 125- to 150cc range.
Company leader Renzo Rivolta (right) with Giotto Bizzarrini and the elegant Iso Rivolta GT 2+2.
Giotto's Side
Giotto Bizzarrini's recollections are quite different, however. To him, the competition Grifo he personally constructed at Autostar in Livorno led to the road car for which Iso is now most famous, not the other way around. "I really liked the Iso Rivolta GT," he says today.  "It was 20 years ahead of the other gran-turismos at the time, except for the windshield's slope and shape and its effect on the car's Cd. I told this to Renzo Rivolta and Nuccio Bertone, saying `The windshield is shaped like a wall,' but they said, `You don't understand production: You are ill and have a fever for racing....'"
 Penned by Giorgetto Giugiaro, the Grifo's first drawings got immediate approval by Nuccio Bertone. Unlike the production cars, the A3/L prototype sported externally cooled sidepipes, aerodynamically flawed grille openings and a prominenthood crease.
But while he might have had confidence in Iso's original product,
Bizzarrini acknowledges he thought differently than Rivolta. Even though the Tuscan engineer was not a decision maker at Iso, Bizzarrini's voice may well have been among the loudest there. He constantly told Rivolta that Iso needed to race: "I pushed him from the day I was hired [as a consultant]. I used to say, `Even though you have a large contract from the USA, you must be careful. To sell cars with the Iso Rivolta trademark against Ferrari is impossible.' But our ideas were completely discordant: Rivolta, when he was in the factory, was solo produzione, and I always wanted to go racing. So when my consultancy contract ended, Rivolta gave me a rolling chassis and said, `Here. Now you can go make the racing car yourself.'"
While keeping in frequent contact with Raggi, Bizzarrini remembers coming up with the idea to shorten the wheelbase from 2700mm to 2450 himself. "I was taking the idea of the Ferrari GTO and improving it. This is how I decided on the 2450mm wheelbase. Then, I decided to move the engine even farther back than it was in the GTO."
Constructing this car out of his own pocket, Bizzarrini worked with craftsmen Prampolini and Cantelli on shortening the chassis. "Even though I was making good money at the time [about $250,000 a year in current terms, he estimates], I was considered the madman of the family for undertaking such a thing. All my money was going into the project."
Bizzarrini also recalls making some preliminary sketches of the body and presenting them to Rivolta and Bertone. "Rivolta...liked the idea..., but Bertone said, `This is impossible! This is not a car. You can't get into it, and it will be impossible to have a good view of the road.' So even though Rivolta was in favor and tried to get Bertone to do it, Bertone wouldn't. Bertone proposed to do another car, and asked for a chassis."
Bizzarrini says he saw Bertone's suggestion as the means to an end: "Because I intended from the very beginning to campaign my car, I had a tremendous interest in Bertone's idea, for I could then homologate the chassis so I could race. To do this we would need to produce 100 chassisbut realize, while 100 was the (official) number, the real number was lower; Ferrari only did a little more than 30 GTOs.
"At this point I accepted the badge of `Disegno di Bertone' on the racecar, (and) once Bertone started working on his design, Rivolta gave the okay, recognizing it as a [possible] production variant. He...went to Bertone and said, `Make the car yourself.'"
The Grifo Rolls
Whatever the actual order of events, it's certain that Bizzarrini was still working with Piero Drogo and his Sports Cars Modena firm on the racing version's body while the street berlinetta was finished off by Bertone, sent to Livorno for installation of its front suspension and intricate Bizzarrini-designed exhaust system and returned to Iso for finishing. And it was Rivolta, Bizzarrini insists, who decided the competition car would be shown in raw aluminum: "He understood it would be a good crowd puller."
Yet a third version of the Grifo story is given by Piero Rivolta, Renzo's son and soon to be the leader of Iso on the death of his father in 1966. Working in the company while finishing up his engineering degree at the Milano Politecnico, he recalls, "At that time our production was slower than we wanted. The Grifo was thus an experiment, for we needed something exciting to pu . My father liked the old BMW (507), and so he used this...not as a starting point for the design, but as a starting point for the discussion. Our idea was to keep our investment minimal and let Bertone do a shocking car, and this is exactly what they did. The Grifo was really a Bertone creation." Rivolta recalls there were no parameters placed on Bertone - "It was simple: We sent them a chassis and said, `Make the car you want.'"
The younger Rivolta also says the decision to do two Grifos rather than one came from discussions between Renzo Rivolta and Nuccio Bertone, not Bizzarrini. "Bertone came up with the `Grifo' name [Italian for griffin], and my father was very enthusiastic about it. They decided to do two prototypes, with one being very aggressive.... There were many meetings deciding what to do, and on the aggressive design, in the end we felt the market wasn't large enough to justify full production.
"So while we did the (street car), we let Bizzarrini do more of what he wanted with the (racer). He proposed to move the engine way back, and so on. When the car was finished, my father said it was a beautiful car but it couldn't work - the engine was so far back it was impossible to reach, (and) to check the distributor you had to lift up a panel on the dash and use a mirror! While we let Bizzarrini be very free with it in order to see what he could do, we never really believed in that car."
And Rivolta's recounting is closely matched by Bertone's. According to the designer, "I start (the Grifo story) by saying that it wasn't Iso that asked me for (the car). Rather, it was my own initiative in order to get my own personal car. And, once completed, (it) has given me indescribable feelings.... Of course the final idea was to mass-produce it: Rivolta thought to use (it) in competition, and here is the reason for the (competition car). There was only one (example) because (it) was carried out with Ing. Giotto Bizzarrini and kept his trademark. The agreements (on this car) were direct between Iso and Bizzarrini, and only the car's design was requested from us: We supplied the shape-plan and stopped there.
"There were only two people in Iso with whom I had contact: Renzo Rivolta and (Pierluigi Raggi). (Both gave) clear, specific ideas and immediate decisions. It was a very important experience for me; for a small atelier, it was pretty incredible to achieve these high-class products."
 Relaxing after the Monza launch, starting from the far right are Nuccio Bertone, Renzo Rivolta and guest driver Bob Bondurant. Piero Rivolta is seated far left.
PR shot of an early production-spec Grifo GL. The car is a late-1965 or early-1966 model.
Showboating
At 1963's Turin Auto Show, the A3/L street car was prominently displayed on the Bertone stand as their showstopper. Done up in an elegant silver with a mastic Connolly leather interior, it looked like a finished product. On the Iso stand the A3 Grifo racing version was shown in raw aluminum. Both Grifos rode on a shortened Rivolta GT chassis and sported four large disc brakes, outboard at the front and inboard at the rear. Power for the street car came from a solid-lifter Corvette 327 with a standard Holley 4-barrel: The press release rated it at 365 bhp @ 6000 rpm, but it was actually a 340-horse unit. Inside, the driver found a full complement of gauges set in a beautifully finished wood dash. Replete with leather, power windows and a proper ventilation system, the A3/L's mission was clear: passenger comfort combined with great speed.
The A3 racecar's 327 sported a Bizzarrini-designed manifold with four 45DCOE Webers and a claimed 405 bhp @ 5400 rpm, and its level of finish was stark - almost crude - in comparison to the A3/L. No leather, carpeting or power windows here, just diamond-sewn vinyl and sliding plexiglass.
The reaction to both Grifos was immediate. Representing Iso's home market was
AUTOITALIA, which devoted considerable space to both cars in their Turin show report and demonstrated Iso's continued use of Bizzarrini's name. "The Iso-Rivolta `Grifo' (was) engineered by...Bizzarrini and designed by Bertone," it said, describing the A3/L. "It has sporty characteristics and...the car was designed with an engine which is almost centrally located." After a detailed report, the article finished with a remark indicative of that era's mindset: "The interior is very refined, and features...elegant hand-sewn detail. On the (passenger) door, resulting from the designer's astute understanding of feminine needs, there is a removable hook upon which a purse may be hung."
Switzerland's Automobile Revue covered the A3/L and A3 extensively in their November 7, 1963 issue: "With the A3/L Grifo, which means glamorous Griffon, Iso-Rivolta is showing a more powerful two seater and shorter version of its four seater models. We are talking about a masterpiece from Nuccio Bertone, a two seater with exceptional styling. The well-proportioned and low Grifo...can be considered one of the most beautiful cars displayed at Torino." Nor did they overlook the A3 in their report, which they called the "Iso A3/C" (and thus perhaps coined a name): "While the A3/L will be playing a part in
the regular production program of Iso, the Iso A3/C is a personal initiative of Bizzarrini. Remarkable is the connecting of a steel space-frame with the weight-bearing chassis and
body panels out of aluminum.  Like the art of the monocoque building concept, as seen in the latest Formula One racecars, here it is used for the first time in a gran turismo car. With a wheelbase of 2450mm, it is corresponding to a competition chassis with construction very similar to the construction of the A3/L." AUTOITALIA's coverage of the A3 was even more extensive - no surprise, as they had Bizzarrini himself write the article.
Giotto Bizzarrini's Iso Grifo A3, later called the A3/C or
Corsa, was never pursued by its parent company but developed instead
by the engineer himself.
Later versions would be built and sold under the Bizzarrini nameplate as the Strada and GT America.
Building Blocks
Despite Automobile Revue's wishful thinking, however, at this time the Grifos were not - in fact never had been - planned for true production. Before the Turin show, Renzo Rivolta had been reluctant to even discuss building additional examples. If pressed, he would only concede that perhaps a handful or so could be valuable for building interest in the more practical Iso Rivolta GT. But the press and public alike were salivating over the Grifos at Turin, and the majority of the factory had already come to feel the
same way.
For Gino Recalcati, Iso's production-line foreman and the man who built the chassis assembled at Iso, the Turin show was just another day at the office. "Of course it was exciting," he says, "and there was the passion, but I viewed its construction as my job. In fact to me, it was Renzo Rivolta who was most excited by the car." But Recalcati's nonchalance was more the exception than the rule: Once it was released, the vast majority of Iso employees considered the Grifo as the start of a new adventure.
"For us," says longtime engine and production specialist Giovanni Lazzarrini, "it was something new, for we were now starting a competition with Ferrari and Lamborghini. It was a little bit like a dream - the same dream as when the [Iso Rivolta] GT was born." Indeed, even before they were shown there was an air of excitement running through the factory at Bresso.
"In the beginning," recalls Francesco Colombo, who had been with Iso since the motorcycle-building days of 1953, "we heard talk that another chassis had been made to build another car, but we didn't know what the car was. All we knew was a chassis had been sent to Bertone. Then, after one or two months, one day the private driver of Mr. Rivolta came to us and said, `When drinking some coffee, pretend you are having some stomach problems and need to go outside for a breath of fresh air and to take some pills. Then, go over to Mr. Rivolta's garage and have a look inside."
Suddenly, the factory wa by a flu epidemic; forming an impromptu procession, one by one the workers ventured to the garage and peered through its slightly open door. Inside sat the freshly finished, glistening A3/L.
As the mass conspiracy became more massive, groups formed to discuss what they had seen. "I remember it was big, it was beautiful and it was silver," Colombo recalled of his stealth visit. "Even though we couldn't see the whole car, our reaction was extremely positive. It was really
nice...a beast!"
In the end, the Grifo proved more than just an experiment. While the 2+2 Rivolta GT had been planned as a high-volume supercar, distribution and overhead problems eventually made it clear that sales would never amortize its creation. And upon this realization, the Rivolta family also saw that if Iso were indeed to become a low-volume specialty builder, the faster and flashier Grifo was an entirely logical addition to their line. Far from ending up as a fascinating 2-off showcar, then, existing documents prove at least 402 units - and likely a handful beyond that - were built in all. But that, of course, is another story entirely.
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