Yahoo Autos Angular, Absurdist Alfa Romeo SZ Coupe Is Today's Bring a Trailer Find
Created to restore Alfa Romeo's sports car luster after it was acquired by Fiat, the SZ earned it the nickname "Il Mostro" (The Monster) from the Italian press due to it wild looks and race-car handling.
Under the SZ's futuristic composite body lurks a modified Alfa Romeo Milano (75) chassis, with a 3.0-liter "Busso" V-6 and a suspension adapted from the 75 Turbo Evoluzione IMSA.
Only 1036 SZs were made between 1989 to 1991, and they're a bargain compared to many other coachbuilt exotics. This one has just 13,000 km (8100 miles) on the clock.
Depending on your perspective, the Alfa Romeo SZ is either postmodern cool or a hideous doorstop. It's been that way ever since it dropped like a bombshell at the 1989 Geneva auto show, stunning onlookers with its brutal, futuristic angularity. It still splits opinions today, but you can't ignore it, just as intended. After Fiat bought Alfa in 1986, then-Fiat CEO Vittorio Ghidella decided that a limited-production, high-profile sports car would help rejuvenate the brand's sporting image, and he specifically asked the designers for "provocative" looks.
He got them. But the fact that just 1036 were made suggests the looks were too provocative. This 1991 SZ, up for auction on Bring A Trailer (which, like Car and Driver is part of Hearst Autos), is number 993. To be fair, the SZ also arrived just as the late 1980s exotic and collector car price bubble burst, pitting it against discounted Ferraris and Porsches. The SZ has been undervalued and underrated ever since. It's still a coachbuilt bargain, though Zagato didn’t actually design it.
In early 1987 the only new car in Alfa's pipeline was the 164, and most of its other designs dated back at least a decade. None were particularly exotic. That February, Ghidella decided to dust off some of the brand's historical magic with a new version of the Bertone and Zagato-bodied Alfas of the 1960s. But rather than handing the project to Zagato, Ghidella had the coachbuilder compete with Alfa and Fiat's in-house studios.
In this skirmish of sketches, Zagato's efforts (led by Marco Pedracini) were quickly eliminated, and team Alfa (under Walter da Silva) ultimately lost to team Fiat (headed by former Citroën designer Robert Opron). Designer Antonio Castellana refined Opron's blocky concept, ultimately achieving a drag coefficient of just 0.30 in the wind tunnel. Zagato's main contributions to the car were the seats, the name (Sprint Zagato), and the production line.
Thanks to the extensive use of CAD/CAM software, the whole design process took 19 months, and even the body panels seemed futuristic. The exterior panels were made of fiberglass-reinforced thermoplastic resin, bonded with special adhesives to a chassis sourced from the Alfa 75, better known to Americans as the Milano. The resin body panels actually made the SZ slightly heavier than the Milano, but they also made it super rigid, and the finished product was capable of pulling 1.1 g's in hard cornering.
Underneath, the SZ's mechanical pieces were all old-school Alfa. The Milano/75 chassis was cut down for the SZ's stubby tail, but it was still the same V-6–powered de Dion rear transaxle setup that had debuted on the 1972 Alfetta. The suspension and brakes were sourced from the 75 Turbo Evoluzione IMSA Group A racer and got special height-adjustable Koni dampers. The 3.0-liter, 12-valve Busso V-6 was tuned up to 210 horsepower with new pistons and other tweaks.
Unlike its visuals, the SZ's driving personality enjoyed nearly universal praise and still does. It's not that fast in a straight line, but the sonorous V-6 loves to rev, and the chassis is beautifully balanced. Plus, it's comfy too, with a big, airy cabin. However, you'll need the space behind the driver's seat for luggage because the trunk is actually a spare tire well—one of this car's many quirks.
The SZ wasn't offered in the U.S., and it struggled to sell in its two main markets, Europe and Japan. Zagato followed it up with the open-topped RZ from 1992 to 1994 but only built 284 of them.
They've since developed a cult following, and the SZ's fundamental oddness is both part of the appeal and part of what keeps it accessible. It can keep up with modern sports cars and is lots of fun to drive, but it's also one of the cheapest ways to saddle up with a low-volume, coachbuilt exotic. They typically sell for about what you'd pay for a used modern Alfa 4C, sometimes less, which is a bargain compared to an 8C Competizione or an Aston V8 Zagato.
This particular SZ, imported from Canada earlier this year but sold new in Japan, has just 13,000 km (8100 miles) on the clock. It's probably one of the cleanest, lowest-mileage SZs in the world. It's also had some recent work, including a new timing belt, clutch, and engine mounts—all wise ideas given the low mileage.
For those who dare to be different, the auction ends on August 6.
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