The original Fiat 124 Spider Abarth was a performance-oriented version of the Fiat 124 Spider, a classic two-seater convertible sports car produced by the Italian automaker Fiat.
The Abarth version of the Fiat 124 Spider was modified and enhanced by Abarth, an Italian tuning and racing company and featured upgrades in terms of engine performance, handling, and other aspects to make it more suitable for racing and high-performance driving.
Did it work? Well, the car made its rallying début in 1969, when several privateer drivers entered national races with the first-series 124 Sport Spider, powered by the 1438 cc twin-cam, 4-cylinder engine. Its overriding strength in competitions was its combination of robustness and optimal road holding due to good weight distribution, despite a power output of less than 100 horsepower.
The results prompted Fiat’s unofficial entry into rallying. In 1970 the engine displacement was enlarged to 1608 cc, while power output was increased to 110 HP. With its new, tuned-up car, Fiat entered the 1970 Italian Rally Championship.
The victories came thick and fast, especially in the 1972 season, when Lele (Raffaele) Pinto and co-driver Gino Macaluso took the chequered flag in the Costa Brava Rally with a 124 Sport Spider that had been lightened by 90 kg. A series of five further victories followed: at Semperit in Austria, followed by Poland, Yugoslavia, and back in Austria in the Rallye der 1000 Minuten. On the strength of these successes and two runners-up finishes in the Italian rallies of San Martino di Castrozza and Elba, Pinto-Macaluso and the Fiat 124 won the European Rally Championship.
Now…if you want an original car it will set you back upwards of c.£75000 so can you make a version that comes close – a really good tribute? We think we did starting with a 1980 Fiat 2.0L USA specification car with virtually no rust. This would be our new race for the Sprinting and Hillclimb series in the UK.
To be true, we spent hours in Guy Moerenhout’s Abarth Museum outside Brussels taking measurements so that we could modify the bodywork. A lot of people just paint the bonnet and boot black and stick a few Abarth badges on…we went hard core.
In a nutshell we:
- Changed the doors and door handles
- Changed the indicators lights, rear lights and associated metalwork
- Recreated the front air intake by changing the metalwork
- Moved the petrol cap from the concealed flap on the left rear wing to behind the rear screen
- Drilled holes in the hinges ( this was a bit of madness) to make it look as authentic as possible
What we did not do was change the rear suspension. The original Abarth has IRS and for our needs that was not going to add anything.
