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Rare Giulietta by Zagato

9K views 20 replies 8 participants last post by  smestas 
#1 ·
Dear friends,

Does anyone have any pics and information about the rare Zagato bodied and produced Giulietta with the "double bubble" roof? It was the predecessor of the Giulietta SZ and is said that only 4 such cars were ever build. I have found some pics and information in the next pdf file:

Look at pages. 1 & 9

It is a fabulous Alfa indeed...!
:)
 
#19 ·
Hello all,
The book titled "Alfa-Romeo Veloce The Racing Giuliettas" has a few pages on the Zagato cars or SVZ. Seems a prototype was built for Carlo, Dore and Massimo Leto di Priolo. It was built from the remains of the Sprint Veloce that Carlo and Dore crashed into a stream in the 1956 Mille Miglia. This first SVZ looked very much like a factory model until you put them next to each other. It was leaner looking and leaner by 240 pounds. It had a top speed of 121 compared to 112 of the SV. This car did not have the double bubble roof. Massimo drove the car to a win first time out at the Coppa Intereuropa on Sept. 2, 1956. So the brothers Zagato built the car in three months. Jo Bonnier came second in a factory SV so the Leto guys must have been good racers and the car surely was a winner. Zagato was pressed for more copies of the SVZ and of course obliged. Three of the subseguent cars were of the double bubble style. The most famous was raced by Carlo Maria Abate. It was painted exactly like the car in our pictures above.
Abate was fond of hill climbs in those days and won a good many in his SVZ. In fact he and the car won the Italian Mountain Championship 1300 class in 1957.
It is unclear as to how many SVZs were built. Perhaps as few as four plus the original. Ada Pace the lovely female driver campaigned an SVZ thru 1959.
Of futher interest is an SV that Sergio Scaglietti rebuilt. This car was also raced succefully. It looked like a Ferrari 250. This one may be somewhere in Italy as we sit here. But the Italians have become very "protective" of their racing treasures. As I was told by one of them, "protective means we keep them untill exactly the right time and very rich person comes and then we charge a fortune for them".
 
#20 ·
Thank you Mr. C! I've got that fantastic di Priolo book. It's a must have.

Also worth pointing out is that these gorgeous Sprint SVZ's are relatively easily duped, as they're just rebodied sprints.

The Giulietta Sprint Speciale was supposedly built to counter the success of the SVZ, but ended up too heavy. In the end, Alfa partnered with Zagato and the Sprint SZ was born, which is not as easily duped! Fantastic cars, 120mph on 1290cc.

Steve Schaeffer
Seattle, WA
NWARC
 
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