Alfa Romeo 1900C Super Sprint Zagato
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Car producer : |
Alfa Romeo |
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Model: |
1900C Super Sprint Zagato |
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Year: |
1955-1958 |
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Type: |
Coupe |
Unlike the convertibles and coupes from Touring and Pininfarina, the Zagato SSZ was a proper sports car, so was the ideal embodiment of the “Millenova” racing genes. Typical features of Zagato designs included extremely lightweight construction and aerodynamically optimised body shapes. One major problem with SSZ was the height of the engine. This problem was resolved by the extreme profiling of the front end, around the engine. The use of the 1900C floorplan meant that the height of the engine was fixed and could not be changed. The entire body was made of aluminium and the side windows were made of plastic material to save weight. The bumpers were produced from very thin, lightweight polished aluminium. This was approximately 100 kg lighter than its competitor from Touring, the slighter bigger Superleggera coupe. None of the 41 cars built was identical.
In 1957, Carrozzeria Zagato exhibited at a Motor Show for the first time since WW2, and the Spider version of the SSZ was presented. The Spider was denied great success. Even so , a few of the styling elements from Spider were used on the last SSZ models. The interior became more comfortable, tuning the SSZ from a pure sports car into a Grand Tourismo. But 1957 marked the end of the career of the SSZ on the 1900C platform. The technical basis is the 1900C Sprint from 1954 and 1900C Super Sprint from 1956 with 1975cc 115HP with a 5-speed floot shift.
