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Iso Rivolta IR 300 GT - coupe body by Bertone - manufactured in 1968
When asked what Italian performance car manufacturer has had the most profound impact on the post-war car market Iso may not immediately spring to mind. Still, this company from Bresso in Northern Italy is probably the correct answer. Its name may not be as familiar now as Ferrari or Maserati but in 1953 it introduced a car that started a trend that lasted into the early 1960s: the Isetta...
Granted, the Isetta has nothing to do with performance cars. It was the worlds first bubble car and sort of merged the Isothermos refrigerators and the Isoscooters the company produced into a neat little car of which the entire front opened like a door. Entering it was much like stepping into a refrigerator on wheels. The Isetta attracted a lot of favorable attention when it was presented at car shows in Geneva and Turin. Industrial giant Fiat regarded is as unwanted competition for its 500 Topolino models and started to oppose the project. When BMW of Germany contacted Iso for acquiring the rights of this car Renzo Rivolta, who founded Iso in 1939, was all too happy to sell it to them complete with all tooling to get Fiat off his back. The BMW Isetta appeared in 1955 and became the car to save the company and more than 160,000 were sold.
Renzo Rivolta wasn't finished with car manufacture after selling the Isetta to BMW however. He decided to enter a segment that wasn't already occupied by Fiat: that of the Gran Turismo cars. Quite the opposite from the Isetta and a segment in which Iso was rather inexperienced. As a driving enthusiast Rivolta had owned Maseratis and Jaguars but felt that these cars lacked dependability and his idea was to offer a car which combined the looks and performance of the GT with the quality and usability of proven mass produced components. By 1960 he had his eye on the British Gordon-Keeble GT which was designed around a powerful Chevrolet V8 and had a rather elegant body by Bertone. This was the concept he was looking for.
When famous engineer Giotto Bizzarrini left Ferrari in the early 1960s he was hired by Rivolta to design and develop the new Iso. He tested the Gordon-Keeble GT, a car which struggled to reach production and needing investors. Bizzarrini only liked its De Dion rear axle lay-out and the small block V8 engine of the Chevrolet Corvette which wasn't anything like the temperamental high-revving V12s he worked with at Ferrari. It was both powerful and reliable and perfectly suited for the car Renzo Rivolta had in mind. But the rest of the British design didn't impress Bizzarrini and so it was decided to create a car from scratch. With help of Corvette engineer Zora Arkus Duntov an engine deal was struck with GM for the 327 cid Corvette unit. The engine was placed in an effective pressed steel platform chassis with independent front wheel suspension (from a Jaguar Mk II), De Dion type coil sprung rear wheel suspension and disc brakes in front and rear. Transmission was either a 4-speed Borg-Warner or a 5-speed ZF unit; the 2-speed Chevrolet Powerglide automatic transmission became available as an option.
At Bertone's designer Giorgietto Giugiaro sketched the lines of a 4-seater coupe for the new Iso which looked pleasingly Italian without being too extravert, not unlike yet slightly less striking than the Gordon-Keeble design before. Where the British car had a fibreglass body the body for the Iso was made from pressed steel, which made it much more rigid. When fitted on the new chassis it resulted in a capable and comfortable GT aimed at travelling distances at high speed. It was unveiled in 1962 and named the Iso Rivolta IR 300 GT, indicating its inventor, the amount of horsepower (300 hp) and of course the type of car. A more powerful version was available as an option: the IR 340 GT, indicating 340 hp.
Performance was ample; in standard trim the 5.4 litre V8 produced 300 (SAE) hp @ 5000 rpm which propelled the 1400 kg car to 215 kph and provided a 0-100 kph acceleration in 8 seconds. In the IR 340 GT the same engine rendered 340 (SAE) hp @ 6000 rpm and a top speed of 225 kph. Top of the list was the rare IR 340/4 GT which was fitted with 4 double Weber carburettors and turned out some 400 hp. To manufacture the new car the factory abandoned the traditional Italian artisan manual labour so common amongst its competitors in favor of the process of mass production. Rivolta expected to sell the car in large numbers, especially in the US. As it turned out the car's high price combined with lack of heritage and its modest looks prevented it from becoming the success he had hoped for. It was made up to 1970 and ultimately 623 of the IR 300 GT and 167 of the IR 340 GT were sold.
In 1964 appeared the Iso Grifo A3 L, the best known Iso performance car though even more rare than the Rivolta GT. It was built on the shortened floorpan of the Rivolta GT and sported a dramatic and aggressive fastback coupe body made by Bertone. Truly a masterpiece drawn by Giugiaro which outshined the more practical GT. The Rivolta GT was succeeded in 1969 by the Lele, named after the wife of Piero Rivolta, the son of Renzo who took over when his father died in 1966. There was also a 4-door saloon named the Fidia on a lengthened chassis. All models were powered by American V8 engines and this proved the be the Achilles' heel of the company when the oil crisis struck in 1973. The already limited sales rapidly diminished as gas guzzling cars became increasingly unpopular and in 1974 the company folded. During those 12 years about 1700 performance cars had left Iso's state of the art factory in total. It must have been bitter to end business because uneconomical cars went out of style two decades after introducing one of the world's most economical cars...
Today Iso may not be the most prestigious Italian marque on the classic car market but quite a lot of the produced cars are still on the road and that says something about their quality. Especially the Grifo is enjoying a boost in popularity and in the wake of that also the Rivolta GT seems to be appreciated better. The Rivolta GT is a practical and comfortable car, less conspicuous than the Grifo and probably more adult without being less fun. An interesting option for those who enjoy Italian style and exotics but don't like to spent as much time repairing as driving their classic.
© André Ritzinger, Amsterdam, Holland
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