A turquoise 1965 Iso Rivolta IR 300 just surfaced on Bring a Trailer, and if you don’t know what it is, that’s exactly the point. This is one of the rarest and smartest grand tourers of the 1960s, an Italian exotic with a Chevrolet 327-cubic-inch V-8 sitting under the hood. The auction closes April 9.
Iso started life building scooters and the egg-shaped Isetta microcar, the same little bubble car BMW famously licensed and built by the tens of thousands. But Iso’s founder, Renzo Rivolta, had zero interest in puttering around. The man raced speedboats and once declared he only enjoyed himself behind the wheel above 120 mph.
So Rivolta assembled a murderer’s row of talent. He hired Giotto Bizzarrini, the engineer behind the Ferrari 250 GTO and the original Lamborghini V-12, to design the chassis. He tapped a young Giorgetto Giugiaro, whose pen would eventually define six decades of automotive design, to shape the body. Then he dropped a proven American V-8 into the middle of it all.
That combination wasn’t just clever. It was ruthlessly practical.
In the 1960s, Italian engineering houses understood something the rest of the world took decades to learn: you don’t have to build everything yourself to build something great. American V-8s were cheap, powerful, and bulletproof. Marry them with Italian chassis and bodywork and you get a car that looks like it costs a fortune to maintain but actually takes parts from the same bin as a Chevy Impala.
The IR 300’s name tells you everything. Three hundred horsepower, routed through a four-speed manual to the rear wheels via a De Dion rear axle. Four-wheel disc brakes hauled it down, and independent front suspension kept the nose tidy. This was a proper grand tourer, not a dressed-up hot rod.
This particular car wears turquoise paint over red leather, a combination that screams confidence. It left the factory in red over black, a handsome but predictable pairing that risked making the car look like a Ferrari understudy. The current livery, set off by 15-inch Borrani wire wheels, announces itself as something entirely different.
Iso built roughly 800 IR 300s between 1962 and 1970. Survivors are genuinely scarce. But unlike most Italian exotics of the era, owning one doesn’t require a second mortgage for maintenance. Need a spark plug? Walk into any auto parts store. The Chevrolet small-block is arguably the most supported engine in history.
Rivolta died in 1966, just one year after this car rolled out of the factory in Bresso, outside Milan. His son Piero carried the company forward with increasingly ambitious models, the Grifo, the Lele, the Fidia, all following the same Italian-wrapper-American-engine formula. But the IR 300 was the one that proved the concept. It was the car good enough for Renzo Rivolta to stamp his own name on the trunk lid.
This example includes an aftermarket air-conditioning system, a thoughtful addition for anyone who plans to actually drive the thing rather than trailer it between concours lawns. Power windows are original.
The Iso Rivolta occupies a fascinating space in the collector market, too rare to be common, too American under the skin to command Ferrari money. That gap between prestige and price is where the smart money has always lived. Bizzarrini’s engineering, Giugiaro’s lines, and Chevrolet’s indestructible V-8, all in one package that most people at a gas station won’t recognize. For a certain kind of enthusiast, that anonymity isn’t a drawback. It’s the whole appeal.
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