Alfa Romeo SZ ("Il Mostro"): The Design Everyone Credits to the Wrong Company
Nicknamed "Il Mostro" — the Monster — for a shape that still divides opinion more than three decades after its 1989 debut, the Alfa Romeo SZ is one of the most polarizing designs to ever wear the Alfa badge. It's also the subject of a persistent bit of misinformation worth correcting.
Who actually designed it
Most write-ups credit the SZ's design to Zagato, the storied Milanese coachbuilder. In fact, the shape was penned in-house at Alfa Romeo's own Centro Stile studio — initial sketches by Robert Opron, with the final styling and interior detailing largely the work of Antonio Castellana. Zagato's role, while historically significant, was different: the company hand-assembled the car, building the composite thermoplastic body panels (supplied by Italy's Carplast and France's Stratime Cappello) at its Terrazzano di Rho facility. It's a small distinction that changes the story: the SZ's shock-value shape came from inside Alfa Romeo itself, and Zagato's real contribution was making a genuinely unusual composite body panel design actually manufacturable in series.
The technical story
Internally coded ES-30 ("Experimental Sportscar, 3.0 litre"), the SZ rides on a shortened Alfa 75 platform and is powered by Alfa's 3.0-liter Busso V6, making roughly 207 hp. That's a well-understood, well-supported engine family among Alfa specialists, which matters for long-term ownership of a car this rare. Alfa built 1,036 SZ coupes between 1989 and 1991, followed by 278 open-top RZ (Roadster Zagato) versions between 1992 and 1994 — fewer than 1,400 cars combined across both body styles.
What it's actually like to drive
Owners and period reviewers describe a car that's heavier and firmer-riding than its compact dimensions suggest — Alfa tuned the SZ's suspension for high-speed autobahn stability rather than tossable agility, and the Busso V6's soundtrack is widely considered one of the best-sounding production V6s of its era. It's less a scalpel than a very fast, very planted, and very loud grand tourer wearing a shockingly small body.
SZ vs. RZ — what's the difference?
The SZ is the fixed-roof coupe covered above; the RZ, built later and in far smaller numbers (278 versus 1,036), is the open-top version with a similar composite construction and the same driveline philosophy. Both share the ES-30 design language, but the RZ's rarity and open-top format make it a meaningfully different ownership proposition — and a meaningfully different price point.
What to know before buying one
The SZ's composite thermoplastic body panels are unlike anything else Alfa built in this era, and repair expertise is genuinely specialized — find a shop with specific SZ/RZ experience before you need one, not after. Beyond that, treat it like any other well-documented Alfa V6 of the period: verify service history on the Busso engine, and confirm the car hasn't been mixed up in parts or panels with the rarer RZ.
Frequently asked questions
Why is it called "Il Mostro"? The nickname stuck almost immediately after the design was revealed, a reflection of just how aggressively unconventional the shape was next to anything else Alfa was building at the time.
Did Zagato design the SZ? No — that's the common misconception this article exists to correct. Alfa's own Centro Stile designed it; Zagato hand-built it.
Is the SZ hard to maintain? Mechanically it shares its V6 and much of its underpinnings with more common Alfas of the era, so parts and expertise for the drivetrain are manageable — it's the unique composite bodywork that calls for a specialist.
Currently available at EuroClassix
One 1991 example is in the collection (ECC-291). See it on the For Sale page. We have imported over 20 SZ’s – please feel free to reach out with any questions.