6 great Italian racers to see at the Goodwood Revival

Alfa Romeo 6C 3000 ‘Disco Volante’

The 6C 3000 ‘Disco Volante’ – which translates to ‘Flying Saucer’ – was Alfa Romeo’s answer to the all-conquering Mercedes-Benz 300SLR but it never had the chance to take the fight to its German rival. An accident at Monza left driver Consalvo Sanesi badly burned and the car wrecked. The result? Alfa Romeo abandoned the project.

The still-damaged car ended up in a Brazilian museum before being mothballed and lost. It was eventually bought by Christopher Mann, who initially thought it would be a useful source of spare parts. That was until he realised it was the long lost car and worthy of restoration. 

It was a big job that took two full decades, including having a new body built from scratch in Italy using the original drawings. The engine has new pistons, but all the other internals are the 1950s originals and no spares are available. It’s a precious thing, then, and it will be doing battle in the Freddie March Memorial Trophy with its 1950s rivals.

Maserati 6CM

If you were expecting this list to a red-wash, here’s a Maserati in a more Teutonic shade. The 6CM (which denotes 6-cylinder monoposto) was the successor to the 4CM and was built from 1936 until World War II brought motor racing to a stop in 1939. 

Markus Neisius is a Goodwood regular in this 1938 example, which benefits from a lower centre of gravity than the earlier cars. Combined with other developments, it meant that Maserati was getting the better of its British voiturette rival, ERA. Both teams, together with Alfa Romeo, had let the Germans run away with Grand Prix racing, both Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union asserting their pre-war dominance in the top flight of single-seater racing. 

Alfa Romeo Giulietta

The second Alfa Romeo entry on this list is very different from the first. The Giulietta may be a considerably more quotidian proposition than the ‘Disco Volante’ but it will be no less entertaining to watch. You could argue it will be more entertaining, because the two-part St. Mary’s Trophy presented by Motul is always one of the most hotly contested of the Goodwood Revival weekend.

Two Giuliettas are on the entry list, among a host of other cars that were more usually seen running errands in the 1950s. Part 1 is for star drivers, with one of the Alfa Romeos to be driven by Formula 1 World Champion Jenson Button and the other being pedalled by Revival regular Anthony Reid, formerly of the British Touring Car Championship. Most of their competition will come from rather upright looking 1950s British saloons, including an Austin A35 driven by Andre Lotterer, Romain Dumas in an Austin A95 Westminster and a Jaguar Mark VII driven by Rowan Atkinson.

Ferrari 250 GT SWB

What list of Italian cars would be complete without a Ferrari? The question is, which one makes the cut? The pack of 250 SWBs in the Stirling Moss Memorial Trophy stood out to us. There were 165 made between 1960 and ’62, and four of them made the entry list at the 2025 Goodwood Revival. 

The SWB, or Short Wheelbase, is so called because it was reduced by 200mm compared to the regular 250 GT. It made for greater agility, yet the car still excelled as a dual-purpose grand tourer and racing car. It was perhaps Ferrari’s most roundly talented car to date when it was first shown in 1959.

More than six decades may have passed since then, but the sight of a 250 SWB and the sound of its Columbo V12 engine powering around Goodwood never get old.

Bizzarrini 5300GT

It may have an American V8 engine, but there’s no denying the Italian style of the Bizzarrini 5300GT. It’s derived from the Georgetto Giugiaro-penned ISO Rivolta, its design having been finessed by Ferrari ‘Breadvan’ designer Piero Drogo. 

A Bizzarrini driven by two little-known Frenchmen started from 24^th on the grid at the 1965 Le Mans 24-hour. Not much was expected of it given that it was in the ‘above 5.0-litre’ class with a gaggle of formidable 7.0-litre Ford GT40s and Ferrari prototypes, but attrition of the grid meant it won its class and came ninth overall. After the victory, Giotto Bizzarrini himself drove the car back to Italy.

Two Bizzarrini 5300GTs will race in the RAC TT Celebration. One will be contested by Emanuele Pirro and James Thorpe, the other by Loris and Mike Hezemans fresh from a victory in the same car the Le Mans Classic earlier this year.

Maserati 250F

Stirling Moss said the Maserati 250F was the best front-engined car he drove, having elected to run a privately owned one for the whole of the 1954 season. The car had made its Formula 1 World Championship debut earlier that season in the hands of Juan Manuel Fangio who claimed victory in the Argentina Grand Prix. His wins in the Maserati contributed to his title that year, although he had moved to Mercedes-Benz before the season was complete.

The 250F ran in the 2.5-litre F1 class from 1954-’60, during which time the 26 cars built amassed eight wins from 277 entries. Three of them are entered in the Richmond & Gordon Trophies at the 2025 Goodwood Revival.

Photography by Dominic James, Jack Beasley, Nick Wilkinson, Mark Beaumont and Amy Shore.