At the 1992 Paris Motor Show Alfa Romeo showed the evolution of the SZ coupe, launched in Geneva two years earlier. The RZ, acronym for Roadster Zagato, was presented as a limited edition convertible for true Biscione connoisseurs. “We wanted to create a sports car of the highest quality, with exciting performance and capable of offering great driving safetyThe Alfa people explained, speaking in front of the car.
In fact, the story goes that selling these cars was pretty complicated. Of the 350 cars planned, only 278 were produced. And Alfa Romeo was forced to keep the car on the list until 1996 to be able to find buyers able to drain the stock left available with its colors, red, black and yellow (with an extra of three metallic silver pieces). A disaster, in short, for a car that had some genuinely peculiar characteristicsbut that, compared to other Japanese rivals, it was quite cumbersome.
The car adopts a 60-degree V-six with 2959 of displacement and 210 horses, placed at the front in a longitudinal position. The transmission is arranged according to the transaxle scheme, while the suspensions are independent wheels with special hydraulic attitude variators. Under typical conditions, the car’s ground clearance is just six centimeters. The Cx, with the roof closed, is just over 0.30, a decent value for a car of this type. The windscreen pillars perform the safety roll-bar function. The interiors of the two-seater are in leather, while the instrumentation, inserted in the anthracite gray dashboard, has a white background. The center console extends along the entire length of the passenger compartment, connecting with the rear roof cover compartment.
At a cost higher than the flagship 164, with a weight of almost 1,400 kilos and extremely small boot dimensions, despite the voluminous rear section, the car did not achieve the hoped-for success.
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