TG’s guide to concepts: the Bizzarrini Manta

Have a guess when this aquamarine spaceship was first introduced at the Turin Motor Show. 1975? 1972? Nope. Despite the foam green and burnt orange paintwork, wedge shape and long-tailed, mid-engined body, the Bizzarrini Manta is a child of the 1960s.

Photos: Italdesign

Aside from being incredibly gorgeous, the Manta actually represents a massive moment for Italian car design and manufacturing. In 1968, Giorgetto Giugiaro had left Bertone and, after a brief stint at Ghia, had formed Italdesign, his own design and engineering company. The Manta is the first concept to ever roll out of Giugiaro’s carrozzeria, and it proved that he was not going to be put in the shade by young upstart Marcello Gandini, regardless of the latter’s outlandishly beautiful concepts. 

And then there’s the matter of Bizzarrini, one of the briefest forays into the world of motoring. It was founded in 1964 by engineer Giotto Bizzarrini – formerly the chief engineer at Ferrari, responsible for the development of the 250 GTO – and was defunct by 1969. 

But in that brief period, Bizzarrini launched the P538 race car, with four-wheel inboard disc brakes, fully independent suspension and fibreglass bodies. Then there was the 5300GT Strada, with de Dion rear suspension, a 400bhp Chevrolet V8 and an aluminium body.

But the most beautiful, we think, is the Manta concept. It took Italdesign just 40 days to build the svelte, super-low fibreglass body on a tubular space frame, incorporating a 400bhp V8 in the process. The Manta was based on the chassis of one of Bizzarrini’s P538 race cars, that had raced at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. 

The result was named after the manta ray – a reference to its ground-hugging stature. It also had a three-wide seating arrangement, with the driver centrally located – decades before the McLaren F1, but it must be said that it was after the Ferrari 365 Tre Posti. 

Italdesign went on to create the genre-defining shapes of the original VW Golf and Scirocco, Maserati Bora and DeLorean DMC-12, before selling the company to Lamborghini a few years back.

As for Bizzarrini? Well, his foray into manufacturing may have been brief, but his contributions to Italian supercars are incredibly long-lived. He designed the V12 engine used in every Lamborghini from the Miura to the Murcielago, was instrumental in the gorgeous Iso Grifo, and even created the 250 Breadvan, after an acrimonious split with Ferrari.

But, for a brief moment, these momentous names joined for a single, gorgeous concept. Do you think they’ve done any better anywhere else? Because we don’t.