PURPOSE: To provide a steel cord twister capable of efficiently producing a high-quality SZ twist cord, of improving productivity, accuracy of twisting and reliability and of remarkably reducing the cost and to provide the SZ twist steel cord.

CONSTITUTION: This steel cord twister is characteristically equipped with a guide roll 1 for arranging and conveying plural strands (a), with front and rear over twisters 2 and 3 for arranging and guiding the conveyed strands and periodically intertwisting the strands alternately in the S or Z direction by rotation round the strand passage X-X as an axis, with a capstan 4 for receiving and conveying the steel cord intertwisted by both the over twisters and with a drive controller 5 for periodically switching both the over twisters from high speed (R2) to low speed (R1) and controlling rotation. A steel cord produced by this twister has S twist cord parts 10a and Z twist cord parts 10b intertwisted and formed by periodically switching the rotation from a high speed to a low speed and the S twist cord part and the Z twist cord part are alternately and successively formed.