Zagato marks Alfa birthday

Zagato; "the unmasked Zorro of Italy"
Neil Dowling

Contributing Journalist

2 min read

Celebrating the centenary of Alfa Romeo, the Zagato-penned TZ3 Stradale is the unmasked Zorro of Italy - except that, to be honest, it's not a pure-bred Italian.

Alfa's birthday cake tastes a bit stale after news that the TZ3 is based on a Dodge Viper - now part of the family thanks to the takeover by Fiat (owner of Alfa) of Dodge's parent Chrysler.

It's dubbed "the first American Alfa Romeo". Which is probably akin to the first Irish pizza.

The TZ3's chassis and drivetrain is borrowed from the Viper over which Zagato has draped a carbon-fibre body that has hints - particularly the abrupt Kamm tail - of previous designs such as the TZ, TZ2 and the track-only, one-off TZ3 Corsa.

Alfa will build nine TZ3 Stradale - which means it's street legal - units but expect a high price and suitability only for left-hand drive markets.

Apparently the first one has already gone to American collector Eric King and the second and third have been spoken for by customers in Japan and Europe. That makes six for you and your mates.

For the money - and we don't know what that is, but can guess - you get the 8.4-litre V10 engine with 400kW and 760Nm and a hot body with two seats.

Alfa Romeo says the Stradale differs from the single TZ3 Corsa, which has a Maserati 4.2-litre V8 and six-speed sequential gearbox. The Corsa was commissioned by Alfa Romeo Zagato collector Martin Knapp.

The TZ3 Corsa and Stradale have a Kamm tail which claims high aerodynamic efficiency with minimal drag. It has previously been used with Zagato's "Coda Tronca" bodies in testing in the 1960s and realised later with the TZ and TZ2. TZ stands for the initials of tubolare (for the tubular frame) and Zagato.

The TZ3 Corsa won the Villa D'Este Design Concept Award in 2010.

Neil Dowling

Contributing Journalist

GoAutoMedia Cars have been the corner stone to Neil’s passion, beginning at pre-school age, through school but then pushed sideways while he studied accounting. It was rekindled when he started contributing to magazines including Bushdriver and then when he started a motoring section in Perth’s The Western Mail. He was then appointed as a finance writer for the evening Daily News, supplemented by writing its motoring column. He moved to The Sunday Times as finance editor and after a nine-year term, finally drove back into motoring when in 1998 he was asked to rebrand and restyle the newspaper’s motoring section, expanding it over 12 years from a two-page section to a 36-page lift-out. In 2010 he was selected to join News Ltd’s national motoring group Carsguide and covered national and international events, launches, news conferences and Car of the Year awards until November 2014 when he moved into freelancing, working for GoAuto, The West Australian, Western 4WDriver magazine, Bauer Media and as an online content writer for one of Australia’s biggest car groups. He has involved himself in all aspects including motorsport where he has competed in everything from motocross to motorkhanas and rallies including Targa West and the ARC Forest Rally. He loves all facets of the car industry, from design, manufacture, testing, marketing and even business structures and believes cars are one of the few high-volume consumables to combine a very high degree of engineering enlivened with an even higher degree of emotion from its consumers.
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