Grifo a thing of beauty, a thing of excellence, a thing of power and a thing of the PAST

Renzo Rivolta, the owner of the car company called Iso. Renzo started his business in making refrigerators then started producing small cars which eventually making cars that are simply magical even in today's time. A car that is so great is expected to be around for a long time in the car manufacturing business but why does it ceased production? But first lets start on how this unicorn landed on the roads.


Giotto Bizzarrini, the noted freelance Italian engineer who’d been on the staff at Maranello and was largely responsible for developing Ferrari’s celebrated 250 GTO, was hired to design a new chassis around Corvette running gear. Bertone was contracted for body styling and production; the youthful Giorgio Giugiaro penned the shape. Then started working on GT car for Iso. A year later, a result of all the hardwork a stunning Grifo A3L prototype coupe.


Grifo shared running gear and suspension with the Rivolta but was tuned for higher performance. The engine was Chevrolet’s 327-cubic-inch small-block V-8 as used in the contemporary Corvette, initially offered with a choice of 300 and 365 horsepower. With a top speed of at least 160 mph in 365-bhp form, the Grifo was as fast as any Italian supercar and as lovely to behold.


So how did this unicorn disappeared from the road? Simple, the problem was that the Iso marque had nowhere near the prestige and snob-appeal of Ferrari or Maserati, so it wasn’t easy to attract orders from the well-heeled types at whom the car was aimed. Then Iso switched it's Corvette engine to the Ford Cleveland Boss 351 4BBL engine, the car also known as the Grifo IR-8. Still utterly brilliant, sales began to dwindle due mainly to the oil crisis. Iso had never been a high volume seller, and it was probably inevitable that the company would eventually flew away from the road. Which is a such bummer.

The Unknown Super Seven

What does a car do when it has a 2-liter engine with four-cylinder Ford Duratec unit rated at a mighty 263bhp. With a special lightweight chassis, thinner-gauge aluminum for the body panels and carbon fiber for the dash, nose cone and front and rear wings, the new Super light R500 weighs just 506kg, giving a power-to-weight ratio of 528bhp per ton??? Well you get a car that goes 0-60 in just 2.8 seconds and can go 0-100 in just 11.44 seconds and a top speed of 150mph, that' almost the same as the Bugatti Veyron.



As you can see the R500 is not a pretty car with a front which look like a frog, a car that does not have doors, windows and a roof can be uncomfortable to drive, but who cares on how it looks, my point is this when your driving Caterham R500 the only thing you can think off is "Will I take off?". That's how this far can go, to prevent it from taking off the ground the manufacturer and the engineers limited the R500 top speed of 150mph.



The car cost $61,057(P2,808622), but a car with monstrous feature can it be a road legal car? Yes, Caterham had already established a dealership with countries like Japan, Australia, South Africa, U.S.A., Canada and mostly in Europe.



So why did I choose to review the Caterham R500? It's simple I adore this car! This car is like a bridge that connects the past, present and the future. A body shape of a race car in the 1930's an engine of our present year and how future race car should perform. I don't care if the sun is in its hottest peak or people that would laugh at a tall fat teenage boy who drives a nimble car. As long I can feel the speed of this car everything is fine with me. As of my list of dream car I ranked the Caterham R500 as my number 1 dream car.