<< Prev Page 2 of 2 Zagato was the obvious choice for the design and construction of the coachwork for the new racer. Obvious because of the past successes and in particular because of the Milanese coach-builder's vast experience with lightweight bodies, which would be a perfect match for the advanced chassis. In the previous years Zagato also made important advances in the understanding of aerodynamics, which led to incorporation of the Kamm tail on the second generation of their Giulietta designs. This greatly improved the high speed stability without increasing drag. Many design elements were carried over and refined for the new car, which was simply dubbed Giulia TZ for Tubolare Zagato. Three years after the project was initiated, the first Giulia TZ debuted on the Zagato stand at the 1962 Turin Motorshow. It would still take considerable time before the TZ was ready for its racing debut at the 1963 Monza FISA Cup, where it started off a rich racing career with a victory.
In order to be homologated for the GT-class, at least 100 examples needed to be constructed. That is why the Giulia TZ was listed in Alfa Romeo's sale brochure even though it was built by Autodelta. As soon as sufficient numbers were assembled, the TZ started to dominate the 1600 cc class on both sides of the Atlantic. Among the many victories were class wins in the Nürburgring 1000 km and the Sebring 12 Hours.
While the customers were winning races every weekend, the engineers at Autodelta were hard at work on a series of improvements. They did not leave an element untouched when they created the TZ2; a lighter, lower and more powerful version of the original TZ. The biggest departure was the use of fibreglass for the body instead of the aluminium used for decades. Whereas the original TZ was a graceful, elegant machine, the slightly changed proportions turned the TZ2 in a muscle car and it was regularly referred to as a mini-GTO.
Autodelta built only 10 (or 12) examples of the TZ2 before they focussed on the highly successful GTA touring cars and the similarly successful Tipo 33 sports prototypes. By that time the independent company was effectively incorporated in the mother company and the last TZ2s were constructed on the Alfa Romeo premises. Beautiful and highly successful because of its simplicity, the TZ2 remains as one of the most desirable GT-cars ever constructed eclipsed only by its big 'brother'; the Ferrari 250 GTO. << Prev Page 2 of 2
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Giulia TZ2
Zagato was the obvious choice for the design and construction of the coachwork for the new racer. Obvious because of the past successes and in particular because of the Milanese coach-builder's vast experience with lightweight bodies, which would be a perfect match for the advanced chassis. In the previous years Zagato also made important advances in the understanding of aerodynamics, which led to incorporation of the Kamm tail on the second generation of their Giulietta designs. This greatly improved the high speed stability without increasing drag. Many design elements were carried over and refined for the new car, which was simply dubbed Giulia TZ for Tubolare Zagato. Three years after the project was initiated, the first Giulia TZ debuted on the Zagato stand at the 1962 Turin Motorshow. It would still take considerable time before the TZ was ready for its racing debut at the 1963 Monza FISA Cup, where it started off a rich racing career with a victory.