In the mid-1960s, Giotto Bizzarrini had the golden touch. While working at Ferrari, his engineering went into creating the 250 GTO, now the world's most collectible car. Later, for Lamborghini, he designed the V-12 engine that would power the company's first GT cars and later the Miura. It's like finding out that the same Italian guy painted both The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa. Oh wait, that did happen.
Like Leonardo da Vinci, Bizzarrini left some of his greatest work unfinished. In 1964, he founded Bizzarrini S.p.A, a company to take what he had learned at Ferrari and Lamborghini and build supercars with his own name on them. Not many of the Bizzarrini 5300 GT Strada were made, but they were gorgeous machines, sitting just three inches taller than a Ford GT40 and powered by a Chevrolet 327-cubic-inch V-8 that provided ferocious and reliable power. Production lasted only four years.
However, before the last 5300 GT was made, Bizzarrini had one with a targa-style removable roof drawn up, to be called the Aptera Lusso. No prototype was ever made, and one of Italy's most prolific engineers soon moved on to building the wild mid-engined AMX/3 for American Motors.
However, Bizzarrini the company was brought back from the dead in 2020, with a plan to produce a new, V12-powered supercar. Before it did this, though, the reborn Bizzarrini decided it would go back and finish the 5300 GT Aptera Lusso, using a fusion of 1960s style and modern materials and engineering.
The results are stunning. Despite looking like it rolled right off the set of the original The Italian Job, this car has a body made entirely of carbon fiber, bonded to a semi-monocoque chassis reinforced with steel. The roof panel is two removable carbon-fiber pieces that can be lifted off and stored in the rear for open motoring.
All the better to let that 5.3-liter V-8 rumble tickle your ears as you cruise down the riviera. Modern fuel injection and an available five- or six-speed manual transmission up the performance, with 400 horsepower to move very little weight. Top speed is said to be 175 mph.
Other modern details are all hidden away behind the scenes, with everything from adjustable Koni dampers in the suspension, ventilated brakes, and a limited-slip differential. In the cabin, there's proper air conditioning, a contemporary stereo, and charging for smartphones. The materials used are part of a partnership with Zegna, the Italian fashion brand, and present classic leather and wood-lined elegance.
Only ten examples of the 5300 GT Aptera Lusso will be built, all of them presumably for an eye-watering price tag. Still, while the rest of us will probably have to get our small-block Chevy V-8 thrills from a Corvette project car, it's wonderful to see that Bizzarrini's original vision has been brought into 2026 with such restraint. The master artist himself would no doubt be delighted.
Brendan McAleer is a freelance writer and photographer based in North Vancouver, B.C., Canada. He grew up splitting his knuckles on British automobiles, came of age in the golden era of Japanese sport-compact performance, and began writing about cars and people in 2008. His particular interest is the intersection between humanity and machinery, whether it is the racing career of Walter Cronkite or Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki's half-century obsession with the Citroën 2CV. He has taught both of his young daughters how to shift a manual transmission and is grateful for the excuse they provide to be perpetually buying Hot Wheels.
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