This week’s Crave Car is a one-off 1965 shooting brake Iso Rivolta with a strong resemblance to the Ferrari 250 GT Drogo “bread van”. The seller makes no claims of originality, but we’re guessing it’s probably not a recent retrofit—Rivoltas, though not stratospherically priced, are still not common enough that radical re-bodies are in the realm of sane collecting strategy.
Rivoltas combined Golden-age Italian design with reliable Detroit-sourced power, much like DeTomaso did with the Mangusta and Pantera, but in a more luxurious, Gran Turismo style—hence the front engine placement and relatively luxurious interior appointments of standard cars. This particular example has a race-stripped interior with a serious-looking matte black metal dash, toggle switches, cable door pulls, quilted transmission tunnel and some very cool gauges with interesting placement—we’re sure it’s a loud, cramped, hot and not particularly comfortable or safe place to be, all of which does nothing to diminish our enthusiasm. This particular car is motivated by 5.4 liters of Chevrolet small block, likely producing about 450 HP or so.
Though not described with an abundance of information or photos, from what we see and what little we’ve read or interest is definitely piqued. Though quite a bit more expensive than a standard Rivolta, its rarity and unique bodywork could potentially make it a steal, provided there’s good answers to quite a few unanswered questions about condition, originality etc. If everything checks out, we can’t imagine another car that would provide similar levels of style and rarity for anything close to the asking price.
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