Giotto Bizzarrini, Who Worked at Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, ATS before Starting His Own Company, Has Died

• One of the greatest designers, engineers, and drivers ever to combine all his talents into a lifelong gallery of beautiful, fast cars, Giotto Bizzarrini, has died.

• Credit him for the Ferrari 250 GTO, Lamborghini V12, Isos galore, and his own Bizzarrini 5300 GT, among many others.

• The company Bizzarrini had just announced a new V12-powered supercar.

Giotto Bizzarrini, the Italian engineer and designer who had a hand in the greatest Gran Turismos ever made, has passed away. He was 96.

Among many other sports and GT cars, Bizzarini was responsible for the development of the Ferrari 250 GTO, a racing and now collector car icon among the most sought-after objects in the collector world. He designed the V12 that would remarkably fit, among other places, transversely behind the seats and forward of the rear axle of the groundbreaking Lamborghini Miura. He created the Rivolta, Grifo A3/C, and Grifo Strada for Iso, as well as his own version of the Iso, the Bizzarrini GT Strada 5300 made by his own company. He went on to design many cars as an independent consultant. And only last February the Bizzarrini Company revealed plans for a Giugiaro-designed V12-powered supercar bearing the engineer’s name.

His prodigious career started after he received his engineering degree from the University of Pisa in 1953. After a short stint teaching, he went straight to Alfa Romeo, where he worked on the Giulietta, before becoming a test driver with a talent for troubleshooting.

“I became a test driver who coincidentally was also an engineer, with mathematical principles,” he’s quoted as saying on the website bizzarrini.com. “I always needed to know why something fails, so I can invent a solution.”