If you've never heard of Bizzarrini, we suggest you do yourself a favor and go read up on the Italian automaker and its illustrious past. But if you have heard of the marque, you may have been keeping up to date with its developments following the announcement in January 2021 that the brand is back. That announcement brought with it the news that a new car was in the works, a revival of the brand's iconic 5300 GT. Details on this car began to emerge over the following months, with us learning that these cars would be thoroughly modernized under the skin and would also be legal to drive on the street. Now the automaker has announced that the very first prototype of the revival project has finally hit the road.

The reborn sports car will now undergo endurance testing as development wraps up before customer cars will be completed. The 5300 GT revival will be built at Bizzarrini's UK facility using original blueprints, materials from original suppliers, and the input of experts involved in the creation of the original classic.

The company says that it has made numerous improvements, including a better-designed fuel tank. On the original car, the fuel tanks (plural) were located deep in the sills and behind the driver, but thanks to 3D scanning, engineers were able to create an intricately shaped tank, "filling the available void in the chassis to tolerances and accuracy not available to the original designers." This has dropped capacity by a marginal amount, but you still have over 25 gallons of volume to keep the car going for multiple laps of a race track.

The paint has also been carefully evaluated, as perfecting the exact shade of red found on the original car was no easy task. Fortunately, the company tracked down a paint color sample from an original panel that had never been exposed to light since it was first painted in the unique shade of Rosso Corsa (not the same shade you'd find on a Ferrari 296 GTB). This was matched and now new cars can be finished as the original ones were. Amazingly, it wasn't just the paint that needed no alterations. When testing the revival after recreating an original model, engineers found that each corner of the car carries a quarter of its overall weight, proving that even without advanced scales and computers, the original 5300 GT had perfect balance.

Since just 24 of these will be made to the specifications of their respective commissioners, it's highly unlikely that us mere mortals will ever experience it, but just drinking in the details of this car on the lawns of Pebble Beach will be an occasion in itself.

The remarkable revival cars will feature a period-specific 5.3-liter V8 with Weber 45 DCOE carbs and a power output of more than 400 horsepower. At just 2,755 lbs, it's light too, so performance should be extraordinary. Giotto Bizarrini, the creator of the original, adored the use of advanced materials, and would he still be alive today, he surely would've used lightweight carbon fiber, which is why the revival cars make use of the composite as standard for the bodyshell, at least as an option for customers not needing to conform to Historic Racing regulations.