Gordon Murray takes an under-used Zagato Alfa Romeo rallying
It was time to acquaint myself with a classic Italian road-legal race car on a beautiful island – and I didn’t even have to leave England to do it...
I’ve just completed another of our ‘Alfa Oldies’ rallies; this time around the Isle of Wight with four classic Alfa Romeos. One couple had the Series 2 Spider I mentioned in my last column, with two other couples in Alfa Sprints – a 1958 Sprint Veloce and a rather rare 1956 Sprint Alleggerita, which is an ex-jo Bonnier racer. I chose to use my 1962 Sprint Zagato, because I was keen to see how the little racing car behaved on normal roads over distance. I bought it at a US auction a couple of years ago, but it has been away in light restoration so this was my first chance to give it a proper run. The model I have is the SZ II or Coda
Tronca (Kamm Tail) which is relatively rare – it was the final version of the SZ, with only 44 made, having been preceded by the normal round-tailed SZ. A young designer named Ercole Spada at Zagato improved the aerodynamics by lowering the roofline and extending the tail. Some 300 hours were needed to furnish the
SZ chassis with their new lightweight aluminium bodies at Zagato’s facility.
The cars had a tuned Giulietta 1300cc twin cam and were very competitive out of the box, their light weight and aerodynamics helped by the addition of a five-speed ’box and front disc brakes.
My particular chassis has been fitted with a 1600cc Alfa Giulia twin cam, although the original Giulietta engine also came with the car. I decided to leave the larger capacity engine in the car to have the benefit of the extra torque.
On our Isle of Wight tour the combination of the larger capacity engine and the SZ five-speed gearbox made for some very relaxed driving. The SZ was an absolute delight to drive through the island’s lovely countryside; the steering and primary controls are communicative and reasonably light. The long-stroke Alfa twin cam is such a charismatic engine with its slightly harsh intake rasp from the unfiltered twin-choke Weber DCOES.
The four Alfas created quite a bit of interest on the island, the SZ in particular. Most folks didn’t recognise the model, but I had a conversation with an Italian gentleman outside our hotel in his native language and he knew all about the SZ because his father had worked for Alfa Romeo in the same period – small world!
For me, the SZ is a perfect classic car; beautiful to look at, rare enough to be of interest to enthusiasts, and easy enough to drive and enjoy. It was also the forerunner to Carlo Chiti’s classic TZ, which took the SZ theme to its final configuration with its aerodynamic body, a lightweight, rigid spaceframe and the 1600cc version of the lovely Alfa twin cam – a very successful car. In recent years both the SZ and TZ have become highly desirable – the TZ in particular, as it is seen by most classic car enthusiasts as the ‘baby 250GTO’.
I am hoping that my Alfaholics Zagato Junior ‘R’ will be ready for the 2020 ‘Alfa Oldies’ tour – but that’s another story!