Pegaso Z-102
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The Pegaso Z-102 is a Spanish
sports car A sports car is a car designed with an emphasis on dynamic performance, such as handling, acceleration, top speed, the thrill of driving and racing capability. Sports cars originated in Europe in the early 1900s and are currently produced by ...
produced by
Pegaso Pegaso (, "Pegasus") was a Spanish manufacturer of trucks, buses, tractors, armored vehicles, and, for a while, to train apprentices, and have a good brand image, some sports cars. The parent company, Enasa, was created in 1946 and based in the ...
in
Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...
in both
coupé A coupe or coupé (, ) is a passenger car with a sloping or truncated rear roofline and two doors. The term ''coupé'' was first applied to horse-drawn carriages for two passengers without rear-facing seats. It comes from the French past parti ...
and
cabriolet A convertible or cabriolet () is a passenger car that can be driven with or without a roof in place. The methods of retracting and storing the roof vary among eras and manufacturers. A convertible car's design allows an open-air driving expe ...
form from 1951 until 1958. The Z-102 was the fastest production car in the world at the time of production, having reached a top speed of .


Background

Pegaso Pegaso (, "Pegasus") was a Spanish manufacturer of trucks, buses, tractors, armored vehicles, and, for a while, to train apprentices, and have a good brand image, some sports cars. The parent company, Enasa, was created in 1946 and based in the ...
was an established company noted for its trucks and motor coaches, but also produced sports cars for seven years. Pegaso's chief technical manager was
Wifredo Ricart Wifredo Pelayo Ricart Medina (15 May 1897 – 19 August 1974) was a Spanish engineer, designer and executive manager in the automotive industry, who spent his professional career in Spain and Italy. The Barcelona "Happy Twenties" Born in Bar ...
who formerly worked as chief engineer for
Alfa Romeo Alfa Romeo Automobiles S.p.A. () is an Italian luxury car manufacturer and a subsidiary of Stellantis. The company was founded on 24 June 1910, in Milan, Italy. "Alfa" is an acronym of its founding name, "Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili." ...
, and while there designed the Alfa Romeo Tipo 512. The Z-102 started life as a pair of prototypes in 1951 with coupe and drophead body styles. Both prototypes had steel bodies which were determined to be too heavy and Pegaso made the decision to switch to alloy bodies to save weight. However, the cars were still quite heavy and brutish to drive and racing success was virtually nonexistent. Because the cars were built on a cost-no-object basis the car soon proved too costly to warrant continued production and the Z-102 was discontinued after 1958. A simplified and cheaper version, the Z-103 with 3.9, 4.5 and 4.7 litre engines, was put into production but had little success and only 3 were built.


Production

Pegaso made the Z-102 starting in 1951 and finishing in 1958 having built a total of 84 cars (some sources say only 71). Out of those 84, 28 were
cabriolet A convertible or cabriolet () is a passenger car that can be driven with or without a roof in place. The methods of retracting and storing the roof vary among eras and manufacturers. A convertible car's design allows an open-air driving expe ...
s while the rest were fixed roof coupés. The original design for the Z-102 was penned by Pegaso chief technical manager
Wifredo Ricart Wifredo Pelayo Ricart Medina (15 May 1897 – 19 August 1974) was a Spanish engineer, designer and executive manager in the automotive industry, who spent his professional career in Spain and Italy. The Barcelona "Happy Twenties" Born in Bar ...
, formerly chief engineer for
Alfa Romeo Alfa Romeo Automobiles S.p.A. () is an Italian luxury car manufacturer and a subsidiary of Stellantis. The company was founded on 24 June 1910, in Milan, Italy. "Alfa" is an acronym of its founding name, "Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili." ...
. The majority of Z-102s had bodies by
Carrozzeria Touring Carrozzeria Touring Superleggera is an Italian automobile coachbuilder. Originally established in Milan in 1925, Carrozzeria Touring became well known for both the beauty of its designs and patented superleggera construction methods. The bus ...
(although early Z-102 units carry Pegaso-made bodies), but a handful of cars had bodies by other coachbuilders. Carrozzeria Touring's design built on Ricart's original design, with changes including redesigning the grille, lowering the car, re-positioning the fog lights and simplifying various details to give it a cleaner profile. This body style is the most well known and numerous of the Z-102 bodies. French coachbuilder
Saoutchik Founded by cabinet maker Jacques Saoutchik (born Iakov Savtchuk in Russian Empire in 1880), Saoutchik was a French coachbuilding company founded in 1906. In the 1930s, the company became well known for their often extravagant automobile designs ...
bodied 18 cars, 3 of which were convertibles, as well as one of the original prototypes. Coachbuilder Serra bodied a handful of cars as well. In house coachbuilder Enasa also built a version of the Z-102 called the "Cupola" which was designed based on sketches from Spanish students. The students were given the challenge of sketching what they thought cars of the future would look like. Prominent design cues from those drawings were then taken, and Enasa brought the car to life. Only two "Cupola" models were known to have been built. One of the two was purchased by Dominican dictator
Rafael Trujillo Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina ( , ; 24 October 189130 May 1961), nicknamed ''El Jefe'' (, "The Chief" or "The Boss"), was a Dominican dictator who ruled the Dominican Republic from February 1930 until his assassination in May 1961. He ser ...
. Only one of the Cupola models is known to have survived and it is currently owned by the
Louwman Museum The Louwman Museum is a museum for historic cars, coaches, and motorcycles in The Hague, Netherlands. It is situated on the Leidsestraatweg near the A44 highway. The museum's former names are "Nationaal Automobiel Museum" and "Louwman Collectio ...
.


Performance

The Z-102 had a pressed steel chassis with an alloy body. Everything was produced in-house at
Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...
at Pegaso's own factory, with the exception of coachwork. The Z-102 is powered by a four-cam all-alloy
V8 engine A V8 engine is an eight-cylinder piston engine in which two banks of four cylinders share a common crankshaft and are arranged in a V configuration. The first V8 engine was produced by the French Antoinette company in 1904, developed and us ...
featuring dry-sump lubrication. Power went through a 5-speed non-synchromesh transaxle. The Z102 entered production with a 2.5 (2,472 cc) litre engine, as was used in the prototypes, though later variants used a 2.8 L (2,816 cc), and 3.2 L (3,178 cc) litre
DOHC An overhead camshaft (OHC) engine is a piston engine where the camshaft is located in the cylinder head above the combustion chamber. This contrasts with earlier overhead valve engines (OHV), where the camshaft is located below the combustion c ...
desmodromic :''In general mechanical terms, the word ''desmodromic'' is used to refer to mechanisms that have different controls for their actuation in different directions.'' A desmodromic valve is a reciprocating engine poppet valve that is positively clos ...
32-
valve A valve is a device or natural object that regulates, directs or controls the flow of a fluid (gases, liquids, fluidized solids, or slurries) by opening, closing, or partially obstructing various passageways. Valves are technically fittings ...
V8
engines An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power ...
with multiple carburetors or an optional supercharger. Power ranged from to and was sent to the rear wheels through a five-speed gearbox with gear-driven camshafts. The base model Z-102 had a top speed of 120 mph (192 km/h). In supercharged trim the Z-102 could reach a top speed of , making it one of the world's fastest production car at that time. The main beams of the car's frame had large
lightening holes Lightening holes are holes in structural components of machines and buildings used by a variety of engineering disciplines to make structures lighter. The edges of the hole may be flanged to increase the rigidity and strength of the component. ...
, and the wheel wells under the body were used as stressed members. This rear-wheel-drive car had its transmission in the rear, connected to the differential (making it a transaxle). But it was unusually located ''behind'' the differential within a reverse A-frame whose apex was at the rear of the chassis. A fuel tank was situated on each side of the transmission. The rear suspension was De Dion, with the unusual feature that to restrain the tube from side-to-side movement, its tube had a small wheel at its midpoint that rolled in a vertical channel on the front of the differential (which in a De Dion system is bolted to the chassis) instead of using a
Watt's linkage In kinematics, Watt's linkage (also known as the parallel linkage) is a type of mechanical linkage invented by James Watt in which the central moving point of the linkage is constrained to travel on a nearly straight line. It was described in W ...
or a
Panhard rod A Panhard rod (also called Panhard bar, track bar, or track rod) is a suspension link that provides lateral location of the axle. Originally invented by the Panhard automobile company of France in the early twentieth century, this device has been ...
.


Racing

Z-102s competed in several racing events but were met with little to no real success. Three Z-102s were entered by Pegaso in the
1953 24 Hours of Le Mans The 1953 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 21st Grand Prix of Endurance, and took place on 13 and 14 June 1953, at the Circuit de la Sarthe, Le Mans (France). It was also the third round of the F.I.A. World Sports Car Championship. British drivers ...
(some sources claim the number was 4, and others claim only 2 entered), but during the race driver
Juan Jover Juan Jover Sañes (23 November 1903 – 28 June 1960) was a Spanish racing driver, born in Barcelona. With Paco Godia, Jover was the first Spanish driver to compete in Formula One. Jover raced for Scuderia Milano- Maserati in the 1947 Bar ...
misjudged the speed of his approach to the corner after the Dunlop bridge, causing him to crash his Z-102 Spyder into the barriers at more than . He sustained serious injuries to his left leg from the crash, and Pegaso decided to withdraw their other cars. They competed also in the
1954 Carrera Panamericana The 1954 Carrera Panamericana was the fifth and final running of the Carrera Panamericana Mexican sports car racing event, run from November 19–23, 1954. It was the sixth and final race of the 1954 World Sportscar Championship. The race was run f ...
, driven by Joaquin Palacio, achieving promising results in the first stages, but an accident prevented an excellent final position.On September 25, 1953, in
Jabbeke Jabbeke () is a municipality located in the Belgian province of West Flanders. The municipality comprises the towns of Jabbeke proper, Snellegem, Stalhille, Varsenare and Zerkegem. On 1 January 2006 the municipality had 13,572 inhabitants. The t ...
(Belgium), a Z-102 Touring BS/2.8 (the old Barchetta used at Le Mans, 2.8 litre single supercharger), driven by Celso Fernández, broke four official R.A.C.B. (Royal Automobile Club de Belgique) world records. Of these records the most prominent was its speed in the flying-start kilometer. The supercharged Z-102 achieved a 243.079 km/h (151.042 mph) average, a record previously held by a
Jaguar XK120 The Jaguar XK120 is a sports car manufactured by Jaguar between 1948 and 1954. It was Jaguar's first sports car since SS 100 production ended in 1939. The XK120 is a highly desirable model. In 2016, Bonhams sold a matching numbers left-hand-d ...
. This made the Z-102 the fastest production car in the world at that time. The original Z-102 BSS/2.5 Bisiluro Especial Competición (2.5 litre twin supercharged) built to take on the records couldn't be used because of a blown engine.


Concours events

A Pegaso Z-102 coupé with coachwork by
Saoutchik Founded by cabinet maker Jacques Saoutchik (born Iakov Savtchuk in Russian Empire in 1880), Saoutchik was a French coachbuilding company founded in 1906. In the 1930s, the company became well known for their often extravagant automobile designs ...
, owned by Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza, wearing leopard skin upholstered seats and gold controls won the 1953
Enghien-les-Bains Enghien-les-Bains () is a commune in the northern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris, in the département of Val-d'Oise. Enghien-les-Bains is famous as a spa resort and a well-to-do suburb of Paris, developed in ...
(France) Grand Prix d'Elegance. A 1952 Z-102 "Cupola", one of two believed to have been made and the only one known to have survived, took the Chairman's Choice Award and Best of Show Concours de Sport at the 2016
Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance The Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance is an automotive charitable event held each year during the second weekend in March at The Ritz-Carlton Amelia Island in Amelia Island, Florida. A ''The New York Times'' article about celebrity car ownership ...
.


Technical data

Note: Technical data is for the 2.8-liter Z102 produced in 1953.


See also

*
Production car speed record This is a list of the world's record-breaking top speeds achieved by street-legal production cars (as opposed to concept cars or modified cars). For the purposes of this list eligible cars are defined in the list's rules. This list uses a diff ...
*
Timeline of most powerful production cars This list is limited to unmodified production cars which meet the eligibility criteria below. All entries must verified from reliable sources. Eligible cars Because of inconsistencies in the definitions of production cars, dubious claims by ...


References


External links


''Automobile-Catalog'' Full line of Pegaso Z-102
* ttp://www.allsportauto.com/wallpapers.php3?zl_id=4482&zl_idMD=663 Pegaso Z-102 Saoutchik cabrioletbr>PIEL DE TORO (in Spanish)
{{s-end Grand tourers Rear-wheel-drive vehicles Convertibles Coupés Cars of Spain Cars introduced in 1951