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It's a sobering thought, but these photographs are as close as most British Alfistas will get to seeing Alfa Romeo's new SZ Spider in the flesh.
Tragically, Alfa GB will almost certainly not be importing the convertible version of Zagato's best-known design. They blame the recession, though in more prosperous times just 43 of the 1020 SZs built were sold in the UK.
The Zagato brothers looked at each other, and smiled. I'd asked them if the Spider was going into production soon. They had reason to grin: less than a hundred yards away, craftsmen were putting the finishing touches to three prototypes, one of which was destined to take centre stage on Alfa's stand at this month's Paris Motor Show. I begged them to let me sneak a look.
The most striking change by far is that the SZ is now produced in three colours: yellow and black are now available as alternatives to the coupe's red. Just one SZ coupe was ever built in black, for Andrea Zagato's own use, and it was seeing that car which persuaded Alfa bigwigs to offer a choice of finishes.
Set to cost 10 per cent more than the original SZ - which points to a theoretical UK price of £50,000- the Spider has been heavily modified, with the elimination of scuttle shake top priority. More than 400 parts are new, claims Zagato. The sills are vast, there's a sturdy metal bulkhead where the coupe had a rear luggage bench, and the windscreen frame and mountings have been reinforced. Styling is subtly changed.
Gone is the rear spoiler, which always had the look of a Halfords add-on. The rear light clusters are now smoked black instead of red, the fronts white in place of orange. The front bumper is slimmer and 3mm higher off the ground, and the instruments are now black on white, Audi-style.
The roof unclips from the front and back, concertinas vertically, then is lowered gently into its stowage bay under a rearward-hinged panel behind the seats. It's a neat arrangement which leaves more space for luggage than would have been the case had they adopted a conventional fold-back hood.
Despite an official ban on driving the prototype, I was able to manoeuvre it around Zagato's pot-holed site when no one was looking. There was no sign of that soft-top bugbear, scuttle-shake - though, admittedly, this was neither the time nor the place for high-speed, body-flexing antics.
Only 500 SZ Spiders will be built, over two years. Like the coupe before it, all will be left-hand drive. So it's not as though selling the car in the UK would necessitate an expensive right-hand-drive conversion. Perhaps ailing Alfa GB, struggling to maintain its sporting image, has acted prematurely in spurning the most prestigious Romeo for years.
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