Of the handful of noted Italian carrozzerie that designed and built coachwork for history’s most powerful and exclusive sporting automobiles, perhaps none is as celebrated for the beauty of its designs as Zagato.

Ugo Zagato’s Milan-based firm cut its teeth in the pre-war era, particularly coming to recognition for the coachwork it produced for Alfa Romeo’s highly successful racing spiders built on the 6C 1750 and 2300 platforms.

Zagato’s penchant for clothing competition-developed chassis in voluptuous, aerodynamically flowing bodywork continued in the post-war period, as Ugo’s son Elio Zagato took the helm with a clear interest in motorsports.

During the 1950s and early 1960s, Zagato clothed some of the era’s most celebrated European sports-racers, and was responsible for delectable designs that graced limited-production variants of the Alfa Romeo 1900C SS, the Fiat Otto Vu, and the Aston Martin DB4 GT, among others.

ZAGATO AND MASERATI Typical of the firm’s greatest designs was t...