22 Facts About Zagato

Zagato is an independent coachbuilding company and total design centre located northwest of Milan in Terrazzano, a small village near Rho, Lombardy, Italy.

Zagato began his coachbuilding career in 1919 when he left Officine Aeronautiche Pomilio to set up his own business in Milan.

Zagato's intent was to transfer sophisticated constructional techniques that combined lightness with strength from aeronautics to the automotive sector.

Ugo Zagato conceived them as lightweight structures, with a frame in sheet aluminum similar to an aircraft fuselage.

Zagato, using his Aeronautics culture, succeeded in creating a sleek and light body for the car, which scored a 2nd place OA at the 1927 Mille Miglia and it won the 1928 edition.

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Zagato continued to build a variety of aerodynamic cars during these decades, adopting inclined windscreens, more aerodynamic headlights, and convex bootlids.

Zagato found new premises at Saronno, alongside the Isotta Fraschini works, on behalf of which he constructed trucks and military vehicles and a futuristic Monterosa.

Zagato returned to Milan at the end of the war and re-established his company at Via Giorgini 16, close to the Alfa Romeo historic home at Portello.

Zagato looked for more spacious and more comfortable car greenhouses, which were eventually crystallised in a new type-form characterized by airiness and visibility thanks to large glazed areas made in plexiglass, a new material which replaced the traditional heavy glass.

In 1947, as a gift for his graduation at Bocconi University of Milan, Elio Zagato, Ugo's first-born son, received an open-top sports car based on a Fiat 500 B chassis.

In 1955 Elio Zagato scored a victory of the International Granturism Championship at the Avus circuit driving a Fiat 8V GT Zagato.

Elio Zagato found a larger location at 30 Via Arese in Terrazzano, very close to Arese where Alfa Romeo as well would soon choose to establish its new plants.

In 1960 Ugo Zagato was awarded with the Compasso d'Oro design prize for the design of the Fiat Abarth 1000 Zagato.

In partnership with Lancia, Zagato continued the “Sport” series with the Lancia Appia Sport, the Flaminia Sport and Super Sport, the Flavia Sport and Supersport and the Fulvia Sport and Sport Spider.

In 1971 a new Ferrari Zagato, called 3Z, came to life thanks to an idea of Luigi Chinetti of Ferrari NART who financed the decidedly angular spider.

Zagato was asked to build the prototype from the drawings and a clay model that was conceived in GM's studios.

The Aston Martin Vantage and Volante Zagato were the highest expression of this economic and commercial climate.

Zagato styled and built not only prototypes and show cars on behalf of car manufacturers but railways and industrial vehicles.

In 1991 and 1993, the Design Zagato division introduced two Ferrari V-Max models based on the 348 and the Testarossa where styling motifs subsequently adopted on the F355 and 360 Modena and on the Enzo.

Zagato built the Raptor and the Superdiablo V-Max concept, both powered by a Lamborghini V12 at the request of Mike Kimberley Sant'Agata Bolognese company's CEO.

In 1998, Zagato was commissioned by FIAT to design and produce three V-Max prototypes with low fuel consumption .

Zagato designed non-automobile projects such as an automated guided electric commuter train for Masdar City in Abu Dhabi.