This all preceded the 500e at Abarth

Next week we can tell you all about the Abarth 500e: the first electric Abarth, the first images of which recently ended up on the internet early. It is, if we do not include a number of later versions of the 500, the first new Abarth since the appearance of the 124 Spider in 2016. Before that, the first Abarth version of the Fiat 500 came in 2008 and even earlier the Abarth Grande Punto .

Before the brand made its re-entry into the car landscape in 2007 with the introduction of the latter, it was quiet for years around the builder of faster Fiats. Previously, the logo with the scorpion was never stuck on a production car as a manufacturer’s label, but cars appeared under the name ‘Fiat Abarth’ and the name was pasted after model names of other cars, such as the Autobianchi A112 Abarth.

To find out how it came to this, we have to go back to 1949. In that year, Abarth was founded by Carlo Abarth, born in 1908. The then 41-year-old Italian was always tinkering with mopeds and cars when he in 1947 was adopted by racing team Cisitalia as a racing car designer. When it went bankrupt in 1949, Carlo was allowed to take over large parts of the inventory to compensate for the loss of his employer. He then founded Abarth.

The logo

Cisitalia’s acquired assets included five Cisitalia 204As: small, lightweight cars designed for road racing. Because Carlo immediately stuck his brand new name and logo on it, the first Abarth cars were a fact. The logo of the brand did not come out of the blue, by the way. The scorpion is Carlo Abarth’s zodiac sign and also fit well with what his cars had to be: small but poisonous.

The Cisitalia Abarth 204 A Sport Spider, one of the first Abarths.

After ‘taking over’ Cisitalia, Carlo Abarth continued with what he was passionate about: racing. To finance this, Abarth developed, made and sold tuning parts for cars of other brands, such as Lancias, Fiats and Simcas. These products were in great demand and gave the brand a right to exist. After a few years, Abarth had 375 employees and produced 30,000 exhaust systems per year.

An apple diet

A little earlier, in the same year as the birth of Abarth’s brand, the company moved from Bologna to Turin, the heart of the Italian car industry, in view of its rapid growth. There, Abarth quickly strengthened ties with Fiat, so that an official collaboration between the two was already confirmed in 1951.

Meanwhile, the Cisitalia Abarth 204 A was quite successful in racing and Carlo and his friends started developing other racing cars. In the years that followed they produced all kinds of small, lightweight cars with equally small, horny engines. Part of it was intended to break speed records (photo 5). Carlo Abarth, for example, had to lose 30 kilos at the age of 57, so in 1965, to fit into one of his latest creations. He reportedly did this by following an apple diet – and successfully. After squeezing his considerably lighter body into a Fiat Abarth 1000 Monoposto, he set a new acceleration record with that car: a quarter mile in 13.62 seconds. It was the 100th time that Abarth had won a speed record in specific disciplines. Typical for the activity of the brand, which was only founded sixteen years earlier.

Carlo Abarth with his apples and some of the cars he designed or made faster.

The Fiat 500 Abarth, another record car, with a coach by Pininfarina.

Acquisition by Fiat

But Abarth did more than just build racing cars and speed record breakers. The tuned Fiats, but also the stylish coupés that were created in collaboration with, for example, Zagato (photo 4), were in great demand for use on the Italian road network, which was still developing at the time. That did not go unnoticed. In fact, in 1971 Fiat chose to take over Abarth. This also changed the core business from Abarth: henceforth it was the denominator of the racing department of Fiat. In the period that followed, Abarth participated in all kinds of collaborations in numerous competitions, including rallying. Well-known examples of cars from that era are the Fiat 131 Abarth (photo 2) and the Lancia 037 Group B rally car (photo 3), which won the then downright insane WRC championship in 1983.

Yes, Abarth was also involved in the creation of part of Lancia’s rally heritage. Unfortunately, the racing department ceased to exist before the Lancia 037 won the Group B championship. That car would be one of the last creations of the brand, because in 1981 Fiat pulled the plug on Abarth – luckily for Lancia, the 037 was almost finished by then.

Rebirth

The profit from that car would be Abarth’s last moment of fame are for a long time – and maybe forever. In the further 1980s, the name was only used a few times as a label for fast Fiats, such as the Fiat Ritmo Abarth 130TC. Then he died a quiet death.

Which brings us back to 2007, when Abarth experienced its rebirth with the arrival of the Abarth Grande Punto. From then on, Abarth – still under the wings of Fiat – was again a separate brand name. After the Punto, all kinds of iterations of the 500 and the 124 Spider followed, and the brand will add the 500th next week. With its relatively high weight and large size, it probably has little to do with the small and light Abarths with eager combustion engines of yesteryear, but it does ensure that the rich history of the brand is once again considered. Whose deed.

The Fiat Ritmo Abarth 130TC: more or less the last appearance of the pre-2007 Abarth label.