Skip advert
Advertisement

Alfa Romeo SZ headlights - Art of Speed

The Alfa Romeo SZ featured a headlight design many considered to be unsavoury at its launch, but it only improved with time

Alfa Romeo SZ headlights

One, not unreasonable, theory on why some of us bond with cars from a tender age is that, like us, they have frontal features recognisable as a face: a nose, a mouth and two eyes. The urge to personify headlights in particular is understandable: they allow us to see where we’re going at night. Some Fiat 500 owners helpfully apply stick-on eyelashes to their cars’ headlights to emphasise the point.

Advertisement - Article continues below

In the (often dim) and distant past, all cars had round headlights, the very first ‘fuelled’ by acetylene or oil which gave off a lovely waxy yellow glow, similar to the gas street lamps of the time. Electricity changed everything, of course, giving rein to evolving illumination methods – tungsten, halogen, xenon, LED – that not only brightened our lives but, along with advances in plastics and glass, afforded car designers the freedom to fashion ever more aesthetically arresting headlights.

> Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio review - a truly great super saloon

Where once cars were lumbered with a look of wide-eyed surprise – or frog eyes in the case of one small British sportscar from the ’50s – headlights became such a potent feature of a car’s ‘expression’ that nothing less than the automotive equivalent of a Clint Eastwood scowl was required for anything with a performance remit. In recent years, it’s almost as if designers have begun to believe headlights are the window on a car’s soul and that conspicuously dazzling, high-tech complexity denotes a sense of sophistication and advanced engineering throughout the rest of the car. Key to this has been the move towards increasing numbers of small, high-intensity elements, a trend that (maybe) has come to a shuddering hiatus with the Alfa Romeo 4C’s bi-LED ‘bug eyes’, each light unit comprising two small bulbs and an additional five much smaller ones – now, following an unprecedented backlash, replaced by simpler units less upsetting to arachnophobes.

But then Alfa was also responsible for the car that arguably prefigured the move towards smaller multiple light sources as a form of design jewellery. The unforgettably twisted SZ, or ‘Il Mostro’, used clusters of three small headlights, the size and shape of square cream crackers, set into a shallow full-width grille flanking the Alfa shield. Launched at the 1989 Geneva show, the now iconic composite-bodied coupe was branded ugly by most critics and hideous by some. Those initial knee-jerk verdicts seem harsh with the benefit of hindsight, though, especially when the fashion for pretty-pretty cars has faded. The SZ may still be something of a curiosity, but it was ahead of its time in many ways and, today, those old-tech headlights somehow look just right.

Skip advert
Advertisement

Recommended

Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale 2025 review – a rare Italian jewel beyond compare
Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale front
Reviews

Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale 2025 review – a rare Italian jewel beyond compare

What’s Alfa Romeo’s near-£2m hand-built supercar like to drive? We find out, on the Balocco test track
29 Apr 2025
The Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale is ready to hit the road
Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale
News

The Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale is ready to hit the road

Alfa Romeo’s long-rumoured supercar lives, taking inspiration from the ’60s Tipo 33 and built on Maserati's MC20 chassis with either a 607bhp twin-tur…
2 Jan 2025
Alfa Romeo Tipo 103 – dead on arrival
Alfa Romeo Tipo 103 – front
Features

Alfa Romeo Tipo 103 – dead on arrival

This compact four-door might have rivalled the mighty Mini in the 1960s if Alfa had kept the faith
13 Sep 2024
Alfa Romeo Alfasud Sprint 6C - dead on arrival
Alfa Romeo Alfasud Sprint 6C – front
Features

Alfa Romeo Alfasud Sprint 6C - dead on arrival

In 1982 Alfa Romeo showed off a widebody, mid-engined Alfasud destined for Group B rallying. Here's why it never came to fruition
30 May 2024
Skip advert
Advertisement

Most Popular

Ford Focus ST (Mk3) – the car world's greatest misses
Ford Focus ST Mk3
Features

Ford Focus ST (Mk3) – the car world's greatest misses

We’d hoped the 2015 Focus ST would share a good dose of its little brother’s magic. Sadly, it didn’t
28 Apr 2025
The Ferrari 296 Speciale has arrived, and it could be the most thrilling Ferrari ever
Ferrari 296 Speciale – front
News

The Ferrari 296 Speciale has arrived, and it could be the most thrilling Ferrari ever

The 296 Speciale is the latest in Ferrari's line of mid-engined road racers, packing 868bhp and LaFerrari-beating pace on track
29 Apr 2025
Gordon Murray Automotive T.50 2025 review – the ultimate analogue hypercar
GMA T.50 front
Reviews

Gordon Murray Automotive T.50 2025 review – the ultimate analogue hypercar

The GMA T.50 is the car we thought would never come: Gordon Murray's sequel to the ultimate hypercar, the McLaren F1
26 Apr 2025