Top 10 obscure facts you need to know about the Abarth 500

By Stuart Johnston 

Most petrol-heads know that a Mini Cooper is so-named because of its association with a championship-winning Formula One car. The following little-known facts about the magic of the Abarth name will clue you in to the more obscure aspects surrounding the Abarth legend, with its distinctive scorpion badge.

1. Everyone calls them “Fiat Abarths”, but more recently Abarth versions of the Fiat 500 are known officially as Abarths. There is also another Abarth model for sale in South Africa, the Abarth 124 Spider sports car. However, the most prolific Abarth models are based on the Fiat 500 four-seater city car re-launched to the world in 2008

2. The current Abarth 500 range consists of the so-called 595 models, fitted with three versions of the turbocharged 1,4-litre Fiat four-cylinder, mounted in the front.  The power outputs are 107 kW for the basic 595, 121 kW for the 500 Turismo models and 132 kW for the Competizione models. These last-mentioned little firecrackers can crack 0-100 km/h in 6,7 seconds! For a video review on the Abarth 595 Competizione, click here.

3. The name Abarth comes from its company founder Carlo Abarth, who formed a racing team and a tuning company in Italy seven decades ago.

4. Carlo Abarth made his name first as a race team owner, then as a manufacturer of go-faster, twin-tailpipe exhaust systems for family cars, and ultimately  as the creator of special versions of the rear-engined  Fiat 500 and 600 city cars. These cars, known as Fiat Abarths,  were well capable of beating the equivalent Mini Cooper S models in the 1960s. And with special aluminium two-seater GT bodies, Abarths set a number of world speed records, apart from winning hundreds of races all over Europe and in the USA.

5. Carlo Abarth, born in Austria but domiciled in Italy (he was christened “Karl”), was connected to what may well be termed “automotive royalty”. A life-long friend of Ferdinand Porsche (the creator of the famous sports car company), Carlo Abarth married the secretary of Anton Piech, a long-time business partner of Porsche,  who in turn married Ferdinand Porsche’s daughter, Louise. This couple’s son, Ferdinand Piech, would go on to lead the design team for the Porsche 917 and subsequently head up the world-wide Volkswagen Group until just a few years ago.

6. Thanks to this deep-root connection, in the early 1960s Abarth collaborated with Porsche to produce one of the most collectable Porsches of all time, the alloy-bodied Porsche Abarth Carrera GTL, with bodywork styled by Franco Scaglione. The car was driven by such acclaimed drivers as Stirling Moss and Graham Hill. Just 16 examples are known, and each is worth millions of dollars.

7. Carlo Abarth sold his company to Fiat in the early 1970s and Fiat then used the name for its racing and rallying division. A Fiat 131 Abarth won the World Rally Championship in 1980, driven by the legendary  Walter Röhrl.

8. The scorpion on the striking Abarth red and yellow shield, one of the world’s most distinctive marque badges, refers to Carlo Abarth’s astrological birth sign.

9. When the Abarth version of the new-generation Fiat 500 was launched in South Africa in 2012, you could buy an excessively expensive version called the Tributo Ferrari. Complete with a sluggish semi-automatic gearbox it cost R584 900 in late 2014, whereas the standard Abarth cost less than half that price at the time. A standard (non-Abarth) Fiat 500 at 2014 prices cost from R168 900 to R255 850, depending on spec.

10. If you buy an Abarth today you’ll be in a pretty exclusive club. Fiat Abarths sell at a rate of about three or four each month! For a review on the more mundane Fiat 500, on which the Abarth is based, click here.