More style than cavalry. 1969-1975 Alfa Romeo Junior Zagato

The Alfa Romeo Junior Zagato was created for a specific purpose. Until that time – we are towards the end of the ’60s – Carrozzeria Touring Milano had produced almost all of the special series built on Alfa Romeo mechanics, while Zagato was responsible for building the bodies for “gentlemen drivers” who took their Alfa Romeos to the race tracks on weekends. With the closure of Touring Milano at the end of 1966, a void was created and the parent company asked Zagato to fill it, creating a special series of automobiles on the basis of the Giulia “Series 105”.

The Alfa Romeo Junior Zagato as it was presented in October 1969 with a 1.3 litre engine. The simple and rational style of Zagato’s design is immediately recognizable. Note the faired headlights and bumpers that are reduced to a minimum.

The Junior, a beautifully low and wide torpedo on wheels, with its spectacular truncated tail, aerodynamically perfect and stylistically avant-garde, was the work of the designer Ercole Spada, head of the Zagato style centre. Success was immediate, and the first series Junior Zagato with its 1.3 litre engine, presented at the end of October 1969, was produced in 1,108 units until production ceased in 1972. The second series, Junior Zagato 1.6, some 10 centimetres longer, with a less extreme tail designed by Giuseppe Mittino, different in many details and equipped with a 1.6 litre engine, was produced from 1972 to 1975 in 402 units, highlighting almost immediately a certain distance between the successes of the two versions.