Zagato brought back Ercole Spada for this spectacular one-off
Words/Photos: Richard Heseltine
One of the most compelling things about Zagato is that it’s so inconsistent. While capable of creating landmark works of automotive artistry, it’s just as likely to suffer one of its customary credibility chasms. And rarely more so when it’s tasked with shaping a Ferrari. Ever since the first glass-domed 166MM-based ‘Panoramaica’ was unleashed on an unsuspecting world in 1949, the Milanese couturier has routinely produced spectacularly idiosyncratic outlines for Maranello products, save for its trio of sublime 250GTs and the more recent 575GTZ. A case in point is the FZ93, a uniquely left-field vision that foretold many supercar styling trends; it’s just that not all of them belonged on the same car.
Backtrack to 1992 when the car was first conceived and Zagato was in dire straits. Third-generation company principal Andrea Zagato assumed control just as the firm faced ruination. Manufacturing cars in volume was no longer on the radar, but penny number projects and general design work was clearly a goer; the name still had some currency and there were enough wealthy patrons out there to keep the firm occupied as it set about fighting off insolvency. Sugar daddies such as Roberto Tonali, a sometime Zagato partner who commissioned a new one-off Ferrari based upon a lightly-pranged Testatossa, this brave new world blurring the line between a concept car and a coachbuilt offering.
Andrea Zagato immediately set about luring back former head of design Ercole Spada who had left the firm in 1970 for Ford and later BMW. In 1983 he returned to Italy and joined the Turin-based IDEA Institute design house. Suitably intrigued by Zagato’s proposal, Spada made a temporary return and conceived something radical, where in his own words, ‘…it was not necessary to have all that mass; we wanted to make the body tight, form-fitting.’ He did just that, the donor car’s signature side strakes being among the casualties. Up front the new strain borrowed heavily from contemporary Formula One design language, its pointy snout and air intakes mimicking the contemporary nosecone and wing outline first promoted on the Tyrrell 019.
Zagato’s own PR bumf trumpeted its likely singleton status after it was unveiled at the 1993 Geneva Motor Show, saying: ‘While the FZ93 will probably remain a one-off, all the practical aspects of a working prototype have been incorporated.’ The bold two-tone red and black colour scheme allied to the profusion of sponsorship decals likely didn’t help its chances, making it appear even less harmonious. The funny thing is, following a single colour respray (and the passing of more than thirty years ) the FZ93 doesn’t appear all that out there. Not really. It isn’t particularly pretty, but it’s no more ‘challenging’ than many mainstream Ferraris of recent years.
The one and only prototype currently belongs to an Italian enthusiast and appeared at the 2010 Goodwood Festival of Speed where it failed to win its class in the Style et Luxe concours d’élégance. It lost out to an Italdesign Nazca C2. That had to hurt.
Which concept car would you like to learn more about? Let us know by emailing hdc@hagerty.co.uk.