The main differences where:
1.) The yellow head lights for the French cars.
2.) For the UK versions of the SZ and RZ the deflectorplates in the dipped headlamps have been turned around 180 degrees ( explained under techtip 11 ).
3.) Than for the UK SZ's we had a combined Kilometer - Miles counter. The outer ring showes the miles, the inner ring with yellow print the kilometers.
The RZ's only came with a KM-counter.
To drive an RZ in the UK there is a possibility to get a mph transparent sticker.
During the production of the SZ, there where made some little "improvements".
Door panels are mounted more firmly, with a kind of pop rivets ( after number 600, car 616 still did not has them ?? ). I personally do not think it is an improvement to look at. If they would have used better glue it would not be neccesary to "improve" it.
Extra "reinforcement" parts under the hood. But,....strange thing,...the first series hoods do flex less at those points, than the ones with those extra "reinforcements"....the old ones had a thicker rimm, that obviously takes better care of holding the side parts in board.
Different letter type Z and colour on the brake booster housing.
Extra inside shell at the bootlitt ( after number 150 or later ). Looks much better, but also gives some extra weight.
Extra protection for the hydraulic pump, a plastic cover ( almost all the boots are leaking water wenn it rains etc. so this is a typical Italian solution I think,... ) to prevent water dripping onto the pumps electronics. Also the rubber sealing was renewed and got a kind of little lip on top.
Better heat protection and some of the last SZ's had protection around the gearbox-oilcooler. Good idea !
The last 100 - 200 SZ's and the RZ's have a kind of rubber flaps mounted over the dipped headlamps to protect them against rain water. ( does not function at all and those "rubber" parts are so rotten after 10 years, that they fall off spontaniously ).
There were some differences in the luggage belts, at the first series the belt had a buckle with a wooden roller.
Later they replaced it by a cupper roller.
And in the last serie there was no roller at all.
Also there were differences in stitchwork and quality, thickness and colour of the leather, colour and structure of the elastic bands.
Strange thing was that elastic belt material has been used to hold the luggage together. In such way everything could move around during driving.
Over the years at many SZ's the elastic material got "tired", making things do not look too good anymore. Luckily one of our registermembers had the ( last series ) belts remade in a serie of 10 sets.
As always, it seemed an easy job, but leather parts, buckles, metal tilts and beige elastic bands had to be remade as close to original as possible. Also buckles and other metal parts had to be galvanized, in order to have them in the the same color and effect as original etc.etc.
In the picture below you can see a first re-production with non eleastic belts.
Other things are that there are used several types of rear spoilers,...there are small differences and hollow and massive ones. The first 100 SZ's seem to have thicker leather on the seats. The leather of the dash has a softer under layer after number 500 ?? First serie had slightly other rear screens, the electrics for the heating wires in the screen where mounted in another way at the sides. Also there can be little differences in rubber sealings and body parts etc.
If you have noticed more differences, please let me know,...thanks,....Ed.
evdbeek@wxs.nl