1990 Alfa Romeo SZ – Zagato’s Vicious Monster

Robert Opron passed away last month, tragically from complications due to Covid 19. His body of work would certainly warrant significantly more detailed coverage on his illustrious career than I can offer in this column, but I believe a most fitting tribute to his career can be summarized in the 1990 Alfa Romeo SZ, perhaps the most daring and ambitious of his car designs.

Photo: RM Sotheby’s

I’ll never forget the first time I saw an Alfa Romeo SZ in person. I had been working as a professional designer for three years, focusing mostly on automobile design, but also enjoying freelance work in toy and scale model car development. One of my projects was working on a series of Galoob Micro-Machine designs for classic cars. These cars were about 2-inch long and had a spunky squished character; a bit like the “Cars” movie franchise animated vehicles that would appear 20 years later. Having just completed a 300SL Gullwing, a Ferrari 250 GTO, and a Jaguar E-Type in this fashion, when I spotted the full-sized SZ, I thought immediately of the squat designs that I had playfully sculpted for Galoob. Only this was real. Powerful, angry, and proportioned like no other car I had ever seen before, the SZ was instantly memorable.

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