The Zagato AGTZ Twin Tail Is An Alpine A110-Based Throwback That Changes Shape

When Zagato teased its new AGTZ Twin Tail a couple of weeks ago, saying only that it was an homage to “a forgotten Le Mans icon,” we hypothesised that it would be an Alpine A110-based coach-built special that would reference the distinctive twin-finned Panhard LM64 racer of the 1960s. We were nearly there.

The Twin Tail is based on an A110, and it does reference a French Le Mans racer from the 1960s, but the one it cribs from is a little more closely related to the little coupe on which it’s based.

The car in question is the Alpine A220, a mid-engined sports car that raced at Le Mans in 1968 and ’69. In its short racing career, the A220 was not a huge success, managing just a single win, but it was a simply jaw-droppingly beautiful car.

Just the thing for Italy’s maddest coachbuilder to turn its attention to, then. Zagato has draped the modern-day A110 in an astonishing body that stays remarkably close to the reference material, with its low front end and big, doe-eyed headlights.

And the Twin Tail thing? Well, when the A220 was racing, it ran with two different designs. Early versions had a streamlined long-tail look for maximum speed on the long straights of Le Mans, while later cars had a dramatically truncated short-tail setup for better agility on twisty tracks.

Clearly, Zagato couldn’t decide which to reference, so it’s done both. The AGTZ Twin Tail has a detachable tail section, so you can decide which look you want before you leave the garage. Heck, you could even do a long motorway run with the tail in place then pop it off once you get to the twisty stuff. We wouldn’t recommend leaving it by the roadside, though.

It’s not apparent how easy (or otherwise) the detachment process is, but taking the tail off does leave you with something that Zagato helpfully suggests could be used as a piece of automotive sculpture.

We don’t have specs or performance figures yet. The A110 uses a 1.8-litre four-pot turbo engine, which has 256bhp in the basic car and 296bhp in the R and GT models, but it’s not unfeasible that it’s been turned up a bit further for this special project. We also haven’t been given a look at the interior to see if it differs from the standard A110.

The AGTZ Twin Tail is a collaboration between Zagato and La Squadra, a dealership in Katowice, Poland that distributes Bugatti, Koenigsegg, Pagani and others in addition to Alpine. La Squadra founder Jakub Pietrzak said: “The automotive industry is changing faster than ever before. With advancing technology we are becoming increasingly nostalgic, leading us to grab inspiration from the past to move new ideas forward.”

Meanwhile, Zagato CEO Andrea Zagato said: “We didn’t want to make a pure racing car because technology, aerodynamics and power have changed a lot since the 1960s. Instead, we wanted to capture the inspiration and design innovation of the A220… and create an authentic gran turismo in the true Zagato tradition.”

The AGTZ Twin Tail is the striking result. Just 19 will be built, starting at €650,000 before taxes - that’s just over £550,000, which is a lot for what’s still an Alpine A110 underneath. We suspect Zagato won’t have any trouble shifting them, though.