Pegaso Z-102 Spider

The Pegaso Z-102 was a sporting coupe produced in Spain between 1951 and 1958. Employed racing-car technology in its chassis and alloy body. Everything was produced in-house at Barcelona, where the Pegaso cars factory was, with the exception of the external coachworking, either by Touring or Saoutchik (there was also a number of special Pegaso-made bodies).

The Z-102 started life as two prototypes in 1951 as a coupe and a drophead. The coupe and convertible had dumpy steel bodies, and weight was an issue to the extent that Pegaso made the decision to revert to alloy for the coachwork. Coachbuilder Touring then 'beautified' the design, replacing the grille with a two-piece cross, lowering the car, repositioning the foglights, and simplifying various details to give it a clean profile, similar to the contemporary Aston Martin DB2 and the Lancia Aurelia, that was the most memorable and numerous of all Z-102 bodies.

The Z102 entered production with a 2.8 litre engine as used in the prototypes, though later there were variants with 3.1, 3.9, and 4.4 litre DOHC desmodromic 32-valve V8 360 hp (270 kW) engines with multiple carburetors or optional supercharger. Horsepower ranged from 175 to 360, and, transferred through a five-speed gearbox and gear-driven camshaft, the fastest could reach 160 mph, (256 km/h), exceeding Ferrari autos, thus making it the world's fastest production car at the time. The base car had an 120 mph (192 km/h) top speed.

However, the cars were heavy and brutish to drive and competition success was virtually nonexistent. Because the cars were built on a cost-no-object basis, this caused financial difficulty in the company. A simplified and cheaper version, the Z-103, was put into production, but to no avail, and the Z-102 was discontinued after 1958. Production figures range from 84-125, and out of these, only a handful of cabriolets were built.

// Extracted from Wikipedia (see full text clicking here)//

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