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In the mid-1950s, Alfa's Giulietta was facing serious competition in the under-1500 cc classes of international racing. OSCA and Porsche were advancing very rapidly, and were taking titles that had previously been Alfa's stock in trade with the 1300cc Giulietta twin-cam engine.
Even after Alfa began producing their own lightweight Sprints (which used alloy panels and plexiglass side windows to reduce weight), the built-for-racing Porsche Spyders and Carrera coupes (which used the Porsche twin cam engine, not the standard pushrod from the 356) and OSCA sports-racers were still more than a match for the production-based Giuliettas.
So Alfa returned to the source of so many of their prewar successes: the house of Zagato. They contracted with this Milanese coachbuilder to produce ligher and more aerodynamic coupes with which to take the battle to their opposition.
While never dominant, the Sprint Zagatos were at least competitive. But competitiveness came at a cost; these cars were very expensive to build, because of the handwork involved in constructing the alloy panels.
The early Sprint Zagato (or SZ) had a short, rounded tail, not entirely unlike the Porsche 356. But as Zagato started to study the works of Dr. Wunibald Kamm, they realized that for longer-distance events (in particular, the 24 Hours of Le Mans), or more specifically events with long, long straightaways (like Les Hunaudieres, over four miles in those days), the Kamm tail could provide a performance advantage. So they produced this SZ, which had the first of the Zagato "coda tronca" body styles for Alfa Romeo.