After several “teasers”, Zagato finally lifts the veil on its Julia SWB and the least we can say is that the surprise is total. We were expecting a radical transformation, but the modifications go well beyond those of the special machines regularly presented by brands such as Bentley, Bugatti, Ferrari or Lamborghini. The nice green coupé you have in front of you makes good use of the chassis of theAlfa Romeo Giulia, but it has been significantly reworked by Zagato’s team. There are two doors less and the silhouette has nothing to do with that of the Italian sedan. As for the style, it was defined with the help of Alejandro Mesonero, Alfa Romeo’s design boss.
Impossible not to think about theAlfa Romeo SZ from 1990 by observing the fascinating features of this new Zagato coupé, even if it displays wavy curves rather than sharp edges. Zagato also fully assumes the inspiration of the Alfa Romeo of the SZ series, going back to the SZ Codatronca of 1961. The filiation with the latter is obvious when you look at the stern.
A 540 horsepower twin-turbo V6 and a manual transmission
Zagato specifies that the Giulia SWB has a 2.9 liter twin-turbo V6 identical to that of the Giulia GTAm. The latter would therefore develop 540 horsepower but unlike the sedan equipped with an eight-speed automatic transmission, the Zagato coupe prefers a six-speed manual gearbox. This intriguing beauty was designed especially for a major Alfa Romeo Zagato collector and will only exist as a single copy. Note that contrary to what we believed, the Giulia SWB is not the famous super-sportsman of which the boss of Alfa Romeo told us Jean-Philippe Learned during our recent interview. There will therefore be another nice surprise next year to be discovered at Alfa Romeo after this Giulia SWB, whose technical development has been carried out entirely by Zagato.