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Like Father, like son.

Zeigler/Bailey grew from two different inheritances: one father who dreamed of building his own car, another who brought ambitious automotive ideas to life.

Their sons would unite those influences. In 2022, businessman and car collector John Zeigler Jr met automotive engineer and racer Greg Bailey. They recognised in each other a familiar conviction: “You don’t buy cool, you build it.”

Both understood how a car could express the dreams, the experiences, the legacy of the person behind it. They knew how a turn of the key could awaken a connection between generations.

Their philosophy produced a canvas in the Z/B 4.4: a classic car reconsidered from its foundations; the embodiment of the character they loved, and the performance, comfort and reliability they imagined.

The Pieces We Were Missing

As a boy, John Zeigler built cars with a Meccano set. He never seemed to have enough pieces to match his imagination.

Greg Bailey loved the classic Porsche 911, acquiring and rebuilding his first basket-case example at just 15 years of age. Yet his engineering instinct and desire for perfection kept his ideal car tantalisingly beyond reach.

When the two men met, those ambitions found a direction.

John brought the vision of building an enduring company. Greg brought industry-leading experience and determination. What grew from that meeting was the Z/B 4.4. Classical beauty, completely new thinking.

Something Worth Leaving Behind

As the creation of the Z/B 4.4 progressed, so too did our determination to build a company that could preserve the knowledge, standards and responsibility behind it. We are as proud of the sophisticated systems and sustainability engineered into our business, as we are of the car itself.

An extraordinary car like the Z/B 4.4, virtually a clean sheet beneath its skin, takes years of decisions born of hard-won experience and a team’s passion. We believe that work deserves continuity.

Our founders’ vision is to create something tangible, honest and lasting: cars worth keeping, backed by a company engineered to outlive us.

No Gimmes

For all the lessons Greg Bailey learned from his racing driver and car constructor father, he learned one no less enduring from his grandfather on a golf course.

Greg was made to finish every putt. No matter how close the ball lay to the hole, it had to be earned and confirmed.

Years later, that lesson is borne out in the workshop. In the measurement that deserves another check. The component that needs another iteration. The detail that matters, even though nobody else will see it.

Finish the work. Earn the result.

Body

A familiar form, seen anew. A shape that, even at standstill, moves us for reasons we can’t explain.

The classic 911 has that presence. For the Z/B 4.4, this familiar form became the starting point for our own expression. We considered the body as sculpture, where each surface belongs to the next and a change in one curve alters the feeling of the whole.

Our task was to give new ideas a place within that familiarity. To explore proportion, stance and detail so that before you even reach for the door or turn the key, the conversation has already begun.

Soul

We admire cars from the outside. We come to really know them from within.

Open the door of the Z/B 4.4. Take in the scent of the hand-trimmed leather. Settle into the seat, with your hands on the wheel.

Rich materials bring warmth and texture, their surfaces catching the light. Machined metal meets your fingertips, cool and precise. That familiarity you felt from the outside – oddly, you immediately feel it here, too.

That’s because we have given the relationship between seat, steering wheel and pedals the same depth of engineering and design attention. Up to the minute ergonomics, so you feel naturally at home.

It’s you that gives the cabin its individual voice. A colour in leather that holds a memory. A texture you love. A detail whose meaning belongs to you alone.

We create the cabin. You give it a soul.

Heart

Turn the key, and everything changes. The stillness gives way to a pulse. You hear it, so distinctively, from behind you. Open the throttle, and that pulse becomes a voice.

We had to create our own 4.4-litre air-cooled flat six to give the Z/B 4.4 the character we imagined. We wanted the intimacy of an air-cooled flat six engine, with substantially more usable torque. Strength you can enjoy in everyday driving, as well as when the road opens ahead.

Pulling away from standstill, or gathering speed out of a bend, or accelerating without downshifting, the torque is effortless and willing. Stay in the throttle and revel in its rich performance and exuberant voice.

CAD design, billet machining and intricate assembly gave it form. The dyno, the racetrack and road kilometres helped us refine it.

The result is an engine with a familiar mechanical soul and a deeper reserve of strength.

Until it feels right.

We began with the classic 911 because we love what it already is. Its shape, its character and the way it makes you feel are the reason to begin.

But once you recognise the possibility of something better, it becomes difficult to leave it alone.

The pursuit runs through the architecture beneath you to the engine behind you. It lives in the relationship between the controls, the finish of a surface and the way a component performs after the first impression has passed.

We draw. We make. We measure. On the dyno, on the road and on the circuit, we put our decisions to the test. What we learn becomes the next refinement. We keep working until function, form and feeling come together. So that the driver feels the result as something instinctive.

A conversation with the road

We wanted the beauty of the classic 911 to be matched by the way it moves. And moves you.

The suspension governs how the Z/B 4.4 carries its weight, responds to your inputs, settles into a bend and follows the changing surface of the road.

We reconsidered and re-engineered the Z/B 4.4’s very architecture, to have the freedom to develop those qualities and the experience we imagined for its driver.

We pursued a balance between composure and communication. Control that gives you confidence, with enough feeling to keep you involved. Precision that makes a winding road rewarding, with comfort that makes a longer journey inviting.

That requires testing, adjustment and the willingness to return to a decision when the car tells you something new. We pursued this because the pleasure of driving lives in those exchanges. Every bend is a conversation.

A place that feels instinctively yours

In every aspect of the Z/B 4.4 we have imagined a closer relationship between the car and its driver.

A seat that places you naturally. Pedals aligned with your body. A steering wheel that adjusts to meet your hands. Room to settle in and enjoy the journey.

These relationships begin deep beneath the upholstery.

We started in the sheet metal, re-engineering the entire floor and occupant structure to create the freedom to arrange the cabin around the driver.

Our symmetrical architecture lets us deliver that spacious and perfectly aligned seat-pedal-wheel relationship in both left- and right-hand-drive configurations.

Much of the work remains hidden beneath the finished cabin. Its purpose becomes clear when you sit down and appreciate the engine behind you and the road unfolding ahead.

The engine we imagined

We began with a unique feeling we wanted to preserve: the sound of an air-cooled flat-six. Its mechanical presence. The intimacy of an engine you hear behind you and answer with your right foot.

We imagined that same character, with a deeper reserve of strength. Effortless torque that makes driving enjoyment easier. But to do that, not least with our demands for OE-level reliability, meant designing and producing our own, brand-new engine.

Our 4.4-litre air-cooled flat six gives us the freedom to deliver the experience we wanted, from the components within it to the way it delivers its strength on the road.

Years of drawing, making, measuring and testing have met our ambition: an engine that carries the character we love into a broader, more rewarding driving experience.