My Dad was chief of the body shop of the main GM importer in Switzerland. He got a call of a friend who had a big GM dealership and had to fix a beautiful blue metallic Bitter CD with a bad front damage. They studied the damage under the hood and figured out that parts of the front could be fixed with spare parts of the Opel Diplomat. The hood did cost over 4000$ and that was over 45 years ago! The owner of the car was trying to pay the bill of the repair with a fraud check. So the guy in the repair shop kept the car until he passed away last year. I loved the GTs of the area, specially Italian ones. The Bitter CD has a lot of similarity to one of my favourite cars of all time. The Maserati Ghibli. My absolute favourite car ever was the early Iso Grifo. A rare Beauty indeed. I could only see one two times in my entire life. Last month I was at an auction where a late model sold for 200 000 Swiss Francs.
Cars like this make my heart sing. Magnificent! As a motor mechanic of 45+ years, I'd see a few seventies supercars in body shops in the early to mid-eighties undergoing extensive restorations owing to rust. Then I used to look at the sheer quality of some of the sporty cars from Japan I'd worked on from brand new. Whenever a new model was released I'd think: 'I can't imagine this car rusting away, as it's so well made'. I was very wrong and it's only in the last 20 years that corrosion-free cars were finally available. Just prior to Covid, a collector had numerous brand new cars stashed away in a disused mill in Lancashire. He decided to sell them off. stuff like a 100 mile MG Metro Turbo simply fell apart as he tried to load them. The entire floor-pan had separated from the upper bodyshell. Crying shame. A car he imagined was worth £35k went for £2.5k in parts...
I'm old enough to have been in college when the Bitter came out. To my eyes it looked like a less-attractive Ghibli. Boy, I loved the looks of the early Grifo before the huge hood. As sensual as the Miura with that coke-bottle styling.
At 3:18 you speak of sending power to the rear wheels, yet show a front suspension unit! At 9:10 you show the chassis of an electric car! At 10:17 the engine of a racing A3C is correctly shown further "rearwards" than ususal! At 10:31 you show the winning Ferrari 250 LM. At 17:22 you show a McPherson Strut front suspension, rather than double wishbones! At 21:29 the rectangular lights shown actually replaced the circular ones, on a later model of the car!
I noticed a lot of inconsistencies to. This type of false info in a "social media essay" really confuses the facts and the legacy of these vehicles They should have to show citations like in true essay form. So they can do the diligence of getting their story straight.
There is more: 1:08 it's Volkswagens, not Opels, 1:32 the pic is not from the 50's, since the Opel is 1967 or newer, 3:10 it's not a 327 engine, it's a much newer 350 with fuel injection, 3:40 "luxury" which was standard in Opel Diplomat from were a lot parts was used, 3:52 it's a Ferrari! I can't stand it! Stopped watching there...
Why do these cars look like their from the future more than today's vehicles? Absolutely beautiful designs. Imagine these cars combined with today's technology and horsepower.
i miss the days when men of means and ambition just decided "hey, lets make a sports / race car" and just went ahead and did it. They were beautiful to look at, and i love cars with "proper" dials and gauges instead of all the electronic gizmo's in modern cars.I just love the purity of those older classics i guess.
Such a travesty! The information and the images in the section about the ISO Grifo are all over the place. Half of them are either inconsistent or completely out of place!
Not sure why you throw in so much stock footage of cars and manufacturing facilities that have nothing to do with the subject matter at the time. If you need footage, just keep it on the beautiful cars you're describing.
The "Palace Revolt" wasn't that way. Bizzarrini, Chiti and others had problems with Mrs Ferrari (who was crazy) and sent a letter to Enzo through a lawyer. Ferrari preferred direct contact and, offended by their move, fired all of them.
It doesn't help that this vehicle was made during the 'Malaise Era" when anything that aspired to even half decent performance was a no-no. Despite what seemed to be not the most impressive performance numbers, this vehicle had pretty good performance by "Malaise Era" standards.
I don't know which specific car you're referring to. Assuming that it's the Bitter CD, know that there was no "Malaise Era" in Europe and that V8 engines sourced from American manufacturers were not held to comply with US smog regulations. Furthermore, the Bitter CD was built mainly during the first half of the 1970s. Even in the States, compression ratios were not forced to drop substantially (because of unleaded fuel) until 1973 and catalytic converters did not become mandatory until 1976. The term "Malaise Era" refers to a fifteen year period from the late-'70s to the early-'90s when American manufacturers were forced by a combination of CAFE regulations and two fuel crises (1974 and 1979) to downsize their cars and put in smaller engines to make them more fuel-efficient. However, the first generation of downsized cars didn't appear until at least 1976 and even then full-sized cars were only reduced to the size of what had previously been considered intermediates, which meant that they were still big by European and Japanese standards. Furthermore, whilst big block engines were eliminated in passenger cars, that did not apply to trucks. I would say that the Malaise Era only really starts with the introduction of GM's front-wheel drive X Cars in 1979, by which time the Bitter CD had ceased production. European cars that featured American muscle, such as the De Tommaso Pantera, carried on quite happily into the '80s without suffering drastic performance reductions, just as did European cars from Ferrari, Lamborghini, Mercedes, BMW, Porsche, etc.
Tired of these narrated videos referring to the main subject while showing 1930s and 2000 plus technology pics along with pics of the wrong cars while still referring to the subject of the video. Seriously, talking about the subjects platform and showing an electric cars platform is ridiculous. I love these cars, but soon TH-cam will have nothing but scam adds and 90% click bait videos.
Oh yeah also iso griffi had engines in Chevy from 327 all the way up to 427 and and Ford's 351 and some other cubic inches.just thought you'd like to know
My Dad was chief of the body shop of the main GM importer in Switzerland. He got a call of a friend who had a big GM dealership and had to fix a beautiful blue metallic Bitter CD with a bad front damage. They studied the damage under the hood and figured out that parts of the front could be fixed with spare parts of the Opel Diplomat. The hood did cost over 4000$ and that was over 45 years ago! The owner of the car was trying to pay the bill of the repair with a fraud check. So the guy in the repair shop kept the car until he passed away last year.
I loved the GTs of the area, specially Italian ones. The Bitter CD has a lot of similarity to one of my favourite cars of all time. The Maserati Ghibli.
My absolute favourite car ever was the early Iso Grifo. A rare Beauty indeed. I could only see one two times in my entire life. Last month I was at an auction where a late model sold for 200 000 Swiss Francs.
Thanks for this wonderful video😊
Cars like this make my heart sing. Magnificent!
As a motor mechanic of 45+ years, I'd see a few seventies supercars in body shops in the early to mid-eighties undergoing extensive restorations owing to rust.
Then I used to look at the sheer quality of some of the sporty cars from Japan I'd worked on from brand new. Whenever a new model was released I'd think: 'I can't imagine this car rusting away, as it's so well made'.
I was very wrong and it's only in the last 20 years that corrosion-free cars were finally available.
Just prior to Covid, a collector had numerous brand new cars stashed away in a disused mill in Lancashire. He decided to sell them off. stuff like a 100 mile MG Metro Turbo simply fell apart as he tried to load them. The entire floor-pan had separated from the upper bodyshell. Crying shame. A car he imagined was worth £35k went for £2.5k in parts...
I'm old enough to have been in college when the Bitter came out. To my eyes it looked like a less-attractive Ghibli. Boy, I loved the looks of the early Grifo before the huge hood. As sensual as the Miura with that coke-bottle styling.
As a kid in the mid 70s , I saw 2 Bitters nearly everyday in Oberhausen, on the way home from school.
Gotta love the Miura!
At 3:18 you speak of sending power to the rear wheels, yet show a front suspension unit! At 9:10 you show the chassis of an electric car! At 10:17 the engine of a racing A3C is correctly shown further "rearwards" than ususal! At 10:31 you show the winning Ferrari 250 LM. At 17:22 you show a McPherson Strut front suspension, rather than double wishbones! At 21:29 the rectangular lights shown actually replaced the circular ones, on a later model of the car!
I noticed a lot of inconsistencies to. This type of false info in a "social media essay" really confuses the facts and the legacy of these vehicles
They should have to show citations like in true essay form. So they can do the diligence of getting their story straight.
The Opel CD Concept didn't have gullwing doors, either. It had a lift-up canopy.
That's A I for you!
There is more: 1:08 it's Volkswagens, not Opels, 1:32 the pic is not from the 50's, since the Opel is 1967 or newer, 3:10 it's not a 327 engine, it's a much newer 350 with fuel injection, 3:40 "luxury" which was standard in Opel Diplomat from were a lot parts was used, 3:52 it's a Ferrari!
I can't stand it! Stopped watching there...
@@matsfredsson9445 Exactly. If you are making specialist videos, get it right!
Why do these cars look like their from the future more than today's vehicles? Absolutely beautiful designs. Imagine these cars combined with today's technology and horsepower.
I love the Grifo.
I had no idea these cars even existed! Beautiful designs!
Bitter are still in business and still in partnership with Opal. They turn out customised Astras, Corsas, etc badged with the Bitter logo.
always loved the iso from when i was a boy , so handsome!!
I learned a lot. Thanks.
He got a few things wrong, though.
The man at 16:35 isn't Guigiaro, it's Bertone.
Well spotted 👌👌👌👌
why all those unnecessary effects?
it is distracting only
Inaccurate engine pics, GM did not offer that intake manifold and/or TPI at that time!!!!!
You're getting your 1960's TVR Griffith and 1990's TVR Griffith mixed up I'm afraid.
nICE VIDEO WELCOME HERE. FRIEND.
The Bizzarini looked sweet
i miss the days when men of means and ambition just decided "hey, lets make a sports / race car" and just went ahead and did it. They were beautiful to look at, and i love cars with "proper" dials and gauges instead of all the electronic gizmo's in modern cars.I just love the purity of those older classics i guess.
The following applies to all your videos: Great subject matter BUT annoying lack of coherence between narration and images.
Oops - at 3;50, the lovely Bitter looks AMAZINGLY like a Ferrari Daytona!
I hate when people who make these videos do stuff like that. Stuff like that might get this video a thumbs down
"Reliability that only American engineers could provide..." LOL.
4:08 Back when it was unimaginable that gas would be $1.00 or more.
Such a travesty! The information and the images in the section about the ISO Grifo are all over the place. Half of them are either inconsistent or completely out of place!
I saw a BITTER at a wholesale auto auction In Indianapolis in the late 70s or early 80s.
"he transitioned" in 2024 means a whole other thing 😉👍😁😱😱
Not sure why you throw in so much stock footage of cars and manufacturing facilities that have nothing to do with the subject matter at the time. If you need footage, just keep it on the beautiful cars you're describing.
Photos rarely match the talking...too bad.
An interesting video but spoilt by totally irrelevant and incorrect images.
The "Palace Revolt" wasn't that way. Bizzarrini, Chiti and others had problems with Mrs Ferrari (who was crazy) and sent a letter to Enzo through a lawyer. Ferrari preferred direct contact and, offended by their move, fired all of them.
Nor were those natives involved in the revolt
It really was a copy of the 1967-1973 Maserati Ghibli.
The Ferrari GTO was prettier than the Bizzarini...but, the Bizzarini had lower CG, and perhaps more reliability...
got half way through, why can't Americans get basic facts right
It doesn't help that this vehicle was made during the 'Malaise Era" when anything that aspired to even half decent performance was a no-no. Despite what seemed to be not the most impressive performance numbers, this vehicle had pretty good performance by "Malaise Era" standards.
I don't know which specific car you're referring to. Assuming that it's the Bitter CD, know that there was no "Malaise Era" in Europe and that V8 engines sourced from American manufacturers were not held to comply with US smog regulations. Furthermore, the Bitter CD was built mainly during the first half of the 1970s. Even in the States, compression ratios were not forced to drop substantially (because of unleaded fuel) until 1973 and catalytic converters did not become mandatory until 1976.
The term "Malaise Era" refers to a fifteen year period from the late-'70s to the early-'90s when American manufacturers were forced by a combination of CAFE regulations and two fuel crises (1974 and 1979) to downsize their cars and put in smaller engines to make them more fuel-efficient. However, the first generation of downsized cars didn't appear until at least 1976 and even then full-sized cars were only reduced to the size of what had previously been considered intermediates, which meant that they were still big by European and Japanese standards. Furthermore, whilst big block engines were eliminated in passenger cars, that did not apply to trucks.
I would say that the Malaise Era only really starts with the introduction of GM's front-wheel drive X Cars in 1979, by which time the Bitter CD had ceased production. European cars that featured American muscle, such as the De Tommaso Pantera, carried on quite happily into the '80s without suffering drastic performance reductions, just as did European cars from Ferrari, Lamborghini, Mercedes, BMW, Porsche, etc.
Tired of these narrated videos referring to the main subject while showing 1930s and 2000 plus technology pics along with pics of the wrong cars while still referring to the subject of the video. Seriously, talking about the subjects platform and showing an electric cars platform is ridiculous. I love these cars, but soon TH-cam will have nothing but scam adds and 90% click bait videos.
Good video except that one engine is a newer 427 that isn't a big block.but great video other than that
n 1 Espada that's all.
They just weren't pretty enough sadly
💙💙💙💙💙💙
Pic of Ferrari Daytona in Bitter segment.
Eeso Greefo? I don't think so. Try eyso griffo if you want to pronounce the name correctly.
maybe the problem was the name. I mean I'm not bitter ha ha
The bitter looks like shit compared to the competitors of the same era
That Opel CD is just plain ugly, in my not-so humble opinion. 🤷🏻♂️
Oh yeah also iso griffi had engines in Chevy from 327 all the way up to 427 and and Ford's 351 and some other cubic inches.just thought you'd like to know