Z real thing

[JHertzman@xxxxxxx]

In AD7-467 Norm comments with apparent admiration that the new Nissan 240Z "is
exactly what the SZ would have looked like if it were in production today.
Gheeesh!!!" ending with " What do you think?"

I would cavil that the SZ wasn't about what it looked like, it looked as it
did because of what it WAS. The Sprint Speciale was about what it looked like.
The Speciale, nice though it may be, carried an extra 220 pounds of looks,
plus an extra 16" of length for looks and an extra five inches of width for
looks, and lost about five seconds in the 0-100 for looks. Also almost
certainly had an appreciable difference in the polar moment of inertia, which
would have affected handling, for looks. Not that Zagato was unconcerned with
looks, any more than in the Zagato vs. Touring contrasts of the 6C 1750 and 8C
2300 days, but the looks arose from what they wished the car to BE.

It seems to me that the Zagato to which the new Nissan 240Z bears the greatest
visual resemblance is the Lancia Hyena of 1992- profile, waistline, window
forms, the wheelarch bulges. When it appeared the visual impact of the Hyena
immediately called to my mind the Alfa SZ. The Hyena, based on the all-wheel-
drive Lancia Delta Integrale, had the compact, refined, spartan, tightly
wrapped, lithe muscular quality of the SZ without trying to look 'like' any
car ever built. While it is larger and heavier than the SZ, (as it should be,
based on a two-liter sedan) it is seven inches shorter, six inches lower, and
six hundred pounds lighter than the new Nissan. The comparison with papa
Integrale (a very nice car in its own right) are just as striking; the entire
interior trim of the Hyena weighed less than the dashboard of the Integrale.

The biggest reason I don't particularly regret not being able to buy any of
the current Alfas is, needless to say, looks. I am particularly turned off by
the very self-conscious mimicking of vintage details, (like the slots on the
156) intended to remind one of Alfas from the glory years. This syndrome is
not Fiat's only; retro styling afflicts BMW, Volkswagen, Bentley, almost (but
not quite) everybody who has a memorable past to latch onto. Goes with the
times, I guess. Alfa used to do it sometimes with names- 1750, Alfetta, Nuovo
Giulietta- but not with what the car was.  

Grump, 

John H. 
Raleigh N.C. 

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