When it comes to Italian car brands, the average person might think of Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati, and even Alfa Romeo, but definitely not Abarth. But in the hearts of fans, Abarth's position is no worse than the previous supercar brands. No, when a parallel importer in Shandong announced that it would introduce the latest Abarth model, almost all the big V in the car circle and many fans ran to the company's Weibo below to leave a message, expressing their love for Abarth.
In this issue, Yipinjun will talk to you about the history of Abarth and the introduction of domestic Abarth 595/695 models this time.
Like many car companies of the time, Abarth was named after its main founder, Carlo Abarth. Born in Vienna on 15 November 1908, Carlo Abarth showed a talent for car changes and racing from an early age. For example, when Carlo Abarth was 11 years old, in order to speed up the scooter, he came up with a way to put a belt on the wooden wheels, which made him the fastest scooter in the town.
As an adult, Carlo Abarth, driven by his interest, found a job designing motorcycles, and at the same time, he also appeared in various motorcycle races as a racer. In 1928, at the age of 20, Carlo Abarth won his first motorcycle race, and later, with great talent, he won several motorcycle races. But an accident at the 1930 race led Carlo Abarth to give up working as a motorcycle racer.
Despite saying goodbye to motorcycle racing, Carlo Abarth's quest for speed never stopped. In 1934, Carlo Abarth drove a side tricycle from Vienna to Ostend, a total distance of 1373km, and finally he arrived 20 minutes ahead of the train.
After that, to avoid war, Carlo Abarth ran to Italy, settled in Merano, first as a professional racing driver, and later with others to open a car sales shop Cisitalia. Unfortunately, Cisitalia went bankrupt after a few years of operation, and the unemployed Carlo Abarth, on March 31, 1949, partnered with Guido Scagliarini, a Cisitalia racing driver, to form Abarth &C, with his own constellation, Scorpio, as the company's logo. Since then, Abarth has entered the stage of history.
Initially, Abarth renamed the Cissitalia-Abarths 204A from the 204A car he got from his old club and hung the Scorpion-themed logo. Abarth used these cars to compete and scored a series of victories, gradually gaining fame in the circle.
In the 1950s and 1960s, in addition to its involvement in motorsport, Abarth's main business also included the production of vehicle modifications and the provision of high-performance modification solutions for fiat, lancia, simca and other brand models. In 1971, the elderly Carlo Abarth was unable to run Abarth, so he sold it to Fiat, who was not short of money.
Abarth, which belongs to Fiat, is mainly engaged in motorsport, creating 124 Rally, 131 Rally, X1/9 and other cars. In addition, Abarth will also create racing cars for Fiat brands such as Alfa Romeo.
In order to make ordinary people feel the charm of Abarth, Fiat announced in February 2007 that Abarth has become an independent high-performance sub-brand, just like M Power to BMW and AMG to Mercedes-Benz. In the years since, Fiat has introduced the Abarth Punto, Abarth 500, Abarth 124spider and other models.
To date, Fiat has only retained the popular Abarth 500 models, and according to the different power versions, it is divided into two models, the Abarth 595 and the Abarth 695.
The 595, 595 Turismo, 595 Competizione and 695 Esseesse are confirmed for domestic adoption. There are also hard tops + soft tops, 5-speed manual + 5-speed sequential semi-automatic options, which is basically all the models that Abarth can currently buy.
The 595, 595 Turismo, 595 Competizione and 695 Esseesse models are all equipped with four-cylinder 1.4-liter Turbo T-Jet engines. Depending on the positioning, the 595 and 595 Turismo have a maximum power of 121 kW and zero hundred acceleration of 7.4s (AMT models); the maximum power of the 595 Competizione and 695 Esseesse is 132 kW, and the maximum power of zero hundred acceleration is 6.9 s (AMT models).
At present, the only high-performance cars that can be bought in China are MINI, and the arrival of Abarth 595/695 gives consumers more choices. In addition, the core has long been the MINI of the German car, it is too easy to get started, and the Abarth 595/695 retains the wild nature of the performance car, in the process of understanding it and conquering it, it produces a driving pleasure that MINI is difficult to give.