1967 Bizzarrini 5300 GT Strada - Jay Leno's Garage

garage once again automotive royalty today at least royalty to me because when i was in my teen years this was the car this is a 1967 bitsarini gt strata 5300 which stands for 5.3 liters and you'll find out what those 5.3 liters are in just a minute this is the road going version which is the one i like i met mr bitzerini bitzerini if you don't know he was a legendary designer ferrari for the well the most important years i think and then he went to lamborghini then he went out on his own decided to build his own car and this is what he came up with and just one of the sexiest cars i always thought they were just unbelievable 327 chevy power you know that was sort of the thing back in the mid 60s they were called hybrids you've got european style european handling european suspension with the reliability and power of an american drive train it was quite clever i think don't forget most european engines were 2.5 liter oh i mean three liter was huge you know so this was uh this was something that uh well there are a lot of these i have a monteverdi that had a 440 chrysler and of course the shelby cobra probably the most famous one but this is just a legendary car these are rare like so many of the great designers and great cars not great businessmen why they were not more successful i don't know there was all sorts of problems that can happen but just looking at it as a fascinating design and as a beautiful road car and even as a piece of functional art how this one escaped me i don't know my buddy doug cohen managed to grab this one let's bring him in doug congratulations my friend beautiful car oh thank you very much yeah this is bruce meyer has one i drove his two uh this is just fat did you do the restoration on it i bought it restored bought it restored okay and how has it been pretty easy to live with uh it was restored between 2016 and 2019 i think we had to get a couple of kinks out but it it's it's a beautiful car it drives well i my bmw broke down and and i daily drove this for two or three days in la and it was it was pretty good people have no idea what it is don't they most people no idea no you have to be a certain age and you have to have lived in that golden age of rodent track and car and driver when these were just everywhere and and bitzerini are you still with us i believe age 94 something like that yeah so god bless them uh just one of the great designers was involved in the miura and the espada and all the legendary italian cars uh it's a muncie four speed correct it's a borg warner bog wanna force me that's that's right that's what corvette used bog warner uh early on uh but i mean it's all american running gear so something breaks you go down to a napa store and you you know you get what you need i mean doesn't have webers or does it have a four barrel this one has webbers oh okay cool can we can we open up and take a look absolutely to me this is one of the sexiest uh setups you know when the cobra had the weber as an american v8 with the italian webers i always thought that was the sexiest look ever well you'll see what i mean in a minute well a very sexy setup look how far back the engine sits in the chassis it's almost what they call front mid-engine like an slr even that's not a new car anymore that's 15 years old 16 years old now to change the plugs do you have to go in through the floor it's right here on the dashboard oh that's right you have to take that panel off and of course getting a screwdriver short enough to get in there it looks like oh just unscrew that until you realize you only have this much space so you have to take a screwdriver cut it off make it yeah it's the most complicated thing that's right you get in through there and of course those webers just look so great sitting there i never knew if they gave much more horsepower than a big four barrel because i was that debatable thing but they look cool they do look cool and i think you're right i'm not sure either yeah and as you know as you know that's my mantra looking cool was obviously much better than actually being cool but anyway it's just fascinating people always go where's the other half of the engine well it's it's right here it's right in the car is it hot inside this thing it is it is a warm car yes because the engine is so far and it and i think it was the first design that's that front mid engine right right for weight distribution i just like the understanding yes it is a warm car yes so your wife will not drive in this car with you i assume i don't have a wife you don't have a wife no okay now that's another reason to have this car there you go okay very cool now now when you take people out too they go it's hot in this thing well the weather's been pretty good i know i know when the weather's cold i know it's going to be perfect but in the summer it's it's pretty i've only had the car five months so i haven't quite gotten to the summer yet you should run for office you make an excellent politician now we have four wheel disc brakes yes and they're girling i think aren't they i don't know actually i think they are i think they are i think you know and i always love this well this isn't the quilted leather but it's similar to that where the transmission tunnel everything is is leather and the car is not fiberglass it's all aluminum isn't it correct because this is really made the old-fashioned way on a buck and angela bang bang bang and tony and tony and angela and the guys they just make a car and it's it's fascinating to watch if you've ever seen how they do it they just take a sheet of aluminum and they bend it over a buck and they hammer it and and look at the finish you get look how smooth it i mean it's amazing incredible to repair if you ever damage it but it's truly truly artisans they really are uh what else have we got here now the 5300 stands for i guess that would be a 5.3 liter correct i mean nobody thought of the 327 chevy as in leaders back in the day so 5300 nobody knew what that meant and strata means what street version street versus corsa of course to me this is the one to have because the corsa virgin is almost a little too crude for the street and and by any modern standard this would be the racing version today you have no power steering no power brake you have no obviously traction control or any of that type of thing it's just sort of you know man and machine that kind of deal i love where the handbrake is i love how low you sit notice how the transmission tunnel is higher than this seat i mean you're this is really a low car i do you find yourself scraping a lot going over speed no the road clearance is pretty good yeah yeah but you i almost have to look up a little because it is you sit so low and you have great headroom and this is almost as low as a gt40 pretty close i mean when you see these in period and pictures from 1967 this is even next to a stingray or like a ford ltd oh my god the roofs are up here on those things you know this is like ground hugging it's really amazing the beautiful steel they did a wonderful job on the restoration and those are true knock-off wheels not phony knock-offs right campa knock-off wheels right and this is something that was fairly new in 67-63 you have the heated windscreen in the back i think that was an option that was like a heated windscreen really off the screen no no you turn the heat around and take the very cool ollie i love the combination of the leather the dark blue interior and the light blue exterior it's really just a beautiful beautiful job was this restored in america or in europe it was restored in pisa in italy in italy okay and this is the original color combination which is a zoro fiat okay and it had a burgundy leather interior which was unusual because most of them were black right it was restored with the dark blue interior and i don't have the heart to change it but it would certainly look great in bordeaux or yeah it looks like you know it looks great now it looks fantastic i mean just look at this these openings the wheel openings and what does it weigh do you know any idea probably high 2000s but i really don't know the weight oh i i guess 2425 probably i mean it's it's extremely lightweight and it's like superleggera construction isn't it it's all tubes there's no sort of chassis chassis to it it's all just yeah really something it was really interesting that he chose the 327 chevy uh back in the day because it's it's well it's really the most world's most beautiful corvette isn't it but not it's not really quite that like because the engine is much further back yeah i mean it was really a groundbreaking car back and they actually said one of the first to have the engine mid it well just a few inches forward of the midpoint you know right just fantastic come around the back and of course the beautiful round tail lights i love the twin exhausts now let's even have a full-size spare try and find that today just just beautiful ah just amazing it's just and everything fits so nice i mean this restoration is really beautiful and this is all on the street car because these chrome pieces that was not on the corsa model correct correct yeah yeah and recall all the little period touches these bullet mirrors just just a beautiful and of course being chevy running gear i wouldn't say it was bulletproof but certainly way more bulletproof than anything from italy back in the day because people forget you know nowadays you have a lamborghini mirror you've gone to the website and somebody's got me your parts but back when i first got my yellow mirror back in the 80s you had to find somebody who spoke italian and then they wrote a letter to italy then you waited weeks for somebody to write back and talk to somebody you could you just couldn't find parts for them you know so this i'm surprised these didn't sell in greater numbers do you remember what they went for new any idea i really don't they had to be pretty expensive ferraris were 14 to 20 000. miuras are 22 000 which was like hundreds of thousands of dollars now probably 10 to 15 times what it was and i imagine this was probably right up there too but bitzerini wanted to race didn't he he built cars to support the racing so he sold the road version to support the racing and racing of course is ridiculously expensive and that's probably where all the money went how many did they make any idea it's debated but they made about about 145 total bitzerini's some of the courses some of the a3cs which is the is the predecessor of this car until he went on his own i mean he was really a race car lover and i think this is finally you know he's one of the great engineers of of our time and i think um or of the assuming of the of the 50s and 60s he did the 250 gto so i think he finally said i'm going to make my car put my badge on it and that's what he did and it's i think it's neat that he did the lamborghini engine but then he said i i love a corvette motor yeah save the money and and and put this in so yeah and 140 cars is a lot back in the day especially when you're hand making them you know don't forget mclaren only made 64 road cars other people got to 80 75 so it was a growing concern and it was pretty successful and then i don't know what happened was just some recession or some i don't know what happened to the company i'm sure there's a whole story there but it was sad to see it go but it's nice to know that i bet all 100 of them exist in some form if you have if you just have the serial number somebody's rebuilding it so they're that valuable these days so very good can we take it from a ride oh i'd love to i would love to let's let's do it [Music] you know i was probably in my 20s maybe my 30s before i ever saw one of these in person i think these okay the faster i go the better it runs that side of the italian tuna but just for your foot angelo yeah all right that's one way to clean the like it's got floor gears in it which makes it really long leaded a long legged rather so i think it's geared more for high speed than uh flat out acceleration which would i like because i like to drive cars like this on the freeway i love how high the fender is you know when you're sitting when you sit in this car you can't even see the hood but you can see both fenders it's a very comfortable car it's a little tricky to get in if you're a big guy but once you're in it there's plenty of room i like how low you sit i like how i've got plenty of headroom up here i mean you're looking directly at the license plate of the car in front of you that's how low this car is a lot of gasoline is so terrible especially here in california with stupid ethanol you get something called phase separation where the water and the alcohol the gas separates the water uh floats the bottom of the gasoline goes to the top that's why sometimes people wonder why the gas tank just coach building yeah not the average american but maybe guys just a little bit above the average american could afford to have a hand-built car made in italy because the war was over italy needed the work and and you could buy cars like this well let's say a lot everything you can now i wouldn't say anything was ever a bargain but much more readable and so many of those old school artists were still around [Music] but i mean to make the buck out of wood and then hand hammer the aroma over and off really yeah i just think these webber is a little at us and you know these are extremely tricky to set to get them right what happens if they sit for a while and you know the orifices are so tiny they get blocked and yeah i'd run a can of sea throw seafoam through the gas tank seafoam is something i use a lot here it works really well uh it just cleans carburetors and fuel systems i don't have a deal with them i don't get any money nothing like that and i buy it over the counter it's just a product that i like you know i like to mention the product i like without people thinking i'm doing a uh financial endorsement deal you know mtl manual transmission mode is another one i use it works tremendously well this engine generates a lot of heat here it's not terrible every enthusiast believe me in 12 words [Music] is i want to thank duck for bringing this what a thrill to drive this car really exciting automobile i love people like doug that are willing to share with people let people see it hear it it's running a little rough right now we're going to take a look at it when you get back to the shop maybe a plug wires need to be changed on these american beads are especially difficult to get them just right and i'm probably going to play with that a little no less impressive it's just an unbelievable automobile really what an amazing car exciting to look at a lot of drive just a basic out and out support see you guys next week [Music] uh

Channel: Jay Leno's Garage

Views: 376,254

Keywords: Jay, Lenos, Garage, Bizzarrini, Italian cars, Weber, Strada, front mid-engine, Chevy small block, car enthusiast, car porn, gearhead, car guy, sports cars, rare cars, car nerd, Doug Cohen, Newport

Id: 6nwvmbrheVg

Length: 19min 36sec (1176 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 02 2021