Miguel Sánchez
Beyond their preparations on a FIAT basis, the single-seater Abarth They were one of the most successful avenues of work in the extensive career of this sports trainer. Likewise, thanks to it, Carlo Abarth managed to establish its business relations in Italy at a time, a context, where it was not entirely easy to attract the country's main manufacturers to the world of competition.
That being the case, the first thing is to understand how a small workshop specialized in high performance needs the favor of big brands as suppliers. Precisely the compromised situation under which Carlo Abarth found himself at the beginning of the fifties, taking his first steps with Abarth & C SpA just after having founded it in 1949.
Focused on work as diverse as building various chassis for Ferrari, the new company urgently needed a large manufacturer with which to collaborate in order to create sporty versions of their tourism models. An objective that married well with the strategy undertaken by Alfa Romeo after the Second World War, launched into series production while being forced to put aside the most experimental and performance designs.
Thanks to this, in 1955 Alfa Romeo and Abarth They began a brief but intense joint path from which the barchetta emerged first. 750 Competizione with sheet metal chassis and Twin-Cam 1500 engine from the Giulietta. At last Abarth had a possible supplier while Alfa Romeo outsourced part of the expensive racing development that, at that time, it could not afford.
ALFA ROMEO-ABARTH 1100, THE TEMPTATION OF FIAT
After the performance obtained by the 750 Competizione, Carlo Abarth decided to further exploit the possibilities of the Twin-Cam engine. Of course, far from doing it on the tracks of the World Championship, he chose to compete for various world speed records in the class G. To do this, it reduced its displacement to 1.088 cc - the limit was 1.099 - while designing an extremely light box chassis to house the engine in a central-rear position.
Likewise, Pininfarina finished a unique bodywork where the drag coefficient It was made as penetrating as possible although, examining the images of that record-breaking car, perhaps the same cannot be said in relation to the aerodynamic load applied to the rear axle. In any case, elements such as the spectacular rear fins showed how that machine was designed to go in a straight line at maximum speed.
Curiously, the FIAT management had news of that project, possibly updated by their contacts at Pininfarina. At this point, Vittorio Valletta himself - possibly the key man for the SEAT settlement in Barcelona and not in an interior area - entrusted Abarth with a similar car but with even lower displacement by equipping it with a 600 engine raised to 747 cc. Basically, the same one with which the 750 Zagato was equipped.
ABARTH SINGLE SEAT, MEET IN MONZA
Gathered at the Monza circuit on May 18, 1957, the two single-seater Abarths - the second called Abarth-Fiat 750, for the class H– managed to break up to 24 speed and distance records throughout different sessions expanded on the calendar until October of that same year.
An initiative in which the single-seat Abarth equipped with a FIAT engine was especially prolific. Something that, during 1958, encouraged the production of a new model of speed equipped with engine New 500. All this also under Pininfarina design in the aerodynamic body, managing to reduce the weight to only 368 kilos for 36 HP and 180 km/h top speed.
With up to 28 records broken on the Monza circuit, that Abarth-Fiat 500 managed to inscribe its name at the top of the FIA class focused on vehicles with smaller displacement. However, the evolution of that project did not stop there since, by 1960, both Pininfarina in obtaining better aerodynamics like Abarth in that of a FIAT-based engine designed to provide maximum power and resistance with the smallest possible displacement, they redoubled their efforts.
The result of this was the FIAT-Abarth 1000 with 108 HP. A sensational machine not only in terms of weight and speed but also resistance. Not in vain, he managed to break the world record 72 Hours traveling 12.824 kilometers at an average of 186,68 km/h. In short, without a doubt the paroxysm of a saga in which some of the best speed specialists of that Italy with sporting desires joined hands.
Image: FCA Heritage
