Alfa Romeo SZ 3.0 V6 Zagato

Il Mostro. The Monster. That is what they called him before he had even properly made it onto the showroom floor, and if I am being truly honest I still do not entirely understand why Alfa Romeo decided in 1989 that the world had been waiting for this. Fiat had only just taken the reins, the coffers were empty, and instead of tightening the belt they built a two-seater coupé that looked as though it had been sketched by an angry computer.

Square, angular, with that famous double set of three headlamps up front, so brazenly in your face that small children burst into tears and car lovers fell head over heels on the spot.

Zagato drew the lines, Centro Stile Alfa supplied the idea, and the result was a car that polarised like few others. You love it or you run. There is no middle ground. And it is precisely that, that utterly indifferent attitude towards the opinion of the masses, that makes the SZ infinitely more Alfa Romeo than any well-behaved saloon could ever be.

Beneath the composite bodywork (yes, thermoplastic, no sheet metal) lies the engineering of the 75 Gruppo A. The glorious 3.0 V6, that Giuseppe Busso engine over which entire generations of enthusiasts have had a spiritual experience, good for 207 bhp and a sound you do not describe but surrender to. A deep, warm, almost operatic growl that at higher revs swells into a crescendo you would normally have to buy a season ticket to the Royal Albert Hall to hear.

Rear-wheel drive, manual gearbox, and a hydraulic suspension system with ride-height adjustment that lets the car skim across the tarmac like a flat shark in sport mode. Only 1036 examples were built. So this is one of a very select company.

Right, back to the SZ in question. This Rosso Alfa Il Mostro was first registered on 16 December 1991, in Germany, and received its first service at just 1070 kilometres at an Alfa Romeo Vertragshändler in Saarbrücken. In 2000 it came to the Netherlands and has stayed here ever since. And this is where the story turns lovely, because this car has lived with enthusiasts who understood exactly what they had in their hands.

The folder of invoices reads like a love letter. Cared for over many years at Rinsma in Berlikum, the specialist who quite literally knows the SZ as the Monster (that is how it is written on the work order, I am not making this up). The hydraulic suspension system checked and bled, the steering knuckle ball joint renewed, the propshaft centre bearing replaced, the copper rings of the front dampers renewed.

And then the big one: a complete air-conditioning overhaul with conversion to modern R134a refrigerant, including a new condenser, compressor, block valve and bespoke brackets and hoses. A bill that could buy you a whole mid-range saloon straight out of the showroom, but with a car like this that is precisely how it should be. New tyres all round, Pirelli P7, brake fluid replaced, clutch flushed, starter motor reconditioned.

Nothing by halves. Everything done in full.

The best part arrives the moment you climb in. Two bucket seats, trimmed in leather, an interior that is clean and pure without any fuss. No screens, no bells, no whistles. Just you, that gear lever, that steering wheel and that V6 waiting for you behind the bulkhead. This is driving as it was once meant to be, before cars started telling you how to drive.

And then the looks. You have to see it in the flesh to understand what I mean. In photographs it remains an odd, angular apparition. But in the metal that SZ has a presence that grabs you by the throat. It does not merely stand there, it reigns. A little like a wrestler in a tailored suit: compact, broad-shouldered, and utterly certain of its own rightness. Little wonder the SZ now sits firmly at the top of many an enthusiast's wish list, and the prices have been moving in only one direction for years.

In my life I have seen, driven and loved many an Alfa, from the thoroughly rusted-through 33 Sportwagon where it all once began to the various curiosities in between. But the SZ remains something apart. This is not a car you buy to be sensible. This is a car you buy because a part of yourself knows that otherwise you will spend the rest of your life thinking: if only I had, back then.

Of those thousand-and-a-bit Monsters built, very few come to market as well documented and as well loved as this one. This is one such.

The Monster has kept people hesitating on the doorstep for thirty years. You are now standing on that very same threshold.

Special features

• Alfa Romeo SZ 3.0 V6 Zagato, Il Mostro, year of manufacture 1991
• Rosso Alfa, solid paint
• Busso 3.0 V6, 207 bhp, manual gearbox, rear-wheel drive
• Only 1036 examples built worldwide
• Thermoplastic bodywork, Zagato design
• Hydraulic suspension system with ride-height adjustment
• Cared for over many years by SZ specialist Rinsma Berlikum
• Complete air-conditioning overhaul with conversion to R134a (new condenser, compressor, block valve)
• New Pirelli P7 tyres all round, starter motor reconditioned
• Extensive, well-documented service history
• Leather bucket seats, pure interior without any fuss
• Delivered in Germany in 1991, in the Netherlands since 2000