Sunday, July 12, 2009

The Abarth Cars


Abarth Cars was founded by the Austrian born Karl Abarth, a designer who later became an Italian citizen and changed his first name to Carlo. Between nineteen twenty five and nineteen twenty seven Abarth worked as a motorbike designer for Castagna, whilst still only a teenager. Abarth was also a keen motorbike rider and raced in many races. Abarth went on to win the European Championship five times, but sadly had an accident in Austria which forced him to stop racing and instead focus his efforts towards engineering and designing a sidecar.

After moving to Italy permanently, Abarth set up Abarth and co in nineteen forty nine. The nineteen sixties saw successes for the company in regards to racing and hill climbing. Racing against Ferrari and Porsche, the cars commonly raced in the eight hundred and fifty and two thousand cc categories. As well as producing performance cars for racing, Abarth Cars also made exhaust pipes for racing and high performance cars. Tuning kits were also produced, and calibrations between Porsche and Abarth saw various racing cars produced.

In the summer of nineteen seventy one Fiat bought Abarth Cars, and the racing team was acquired by the Italian racing car manufactured, Osella. Abarth was used as a racing subsidiary of Fiat, helping with the Fiat rally cars. The Abarth marque was also used for some of the high performance cars produced by Fiat, such as the Ritmo Abarth 130 TC.

The Abarth brand was resurrected in two thousand and seven, with Fiat launching the Punto Abarth and Punto Abarth S2000.


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