1967 Fiat Abarth 595 EsseEsse Replica

The Italian performance and racing car company, Abarth, was founded by Austrian-Italian Carlo Abarth and Italian Armando Scagliarini in Turin in 1949. Abarth adopted his Scorpio birth sign as the company logo and became known for producing various tuning kits for road vehicles, mainly for Fiat.

Abarth soon evolved into a car manufacturer in his own right, with Fiat most often supplying the bodyshells or partly completed cars, which Abarth modified. The Fiat/Abarth arrangement benefited both concerns since it resulted in the many class victories that his cars captured in competition. These little cars were raced, rallied, and hill climbed all over Europe and won countless saloon championships. They were also the favourite café-racer and a fashionable alternative to the Mini Cooper.

Mechanically, the Abarth 595 was a vastly improved car over the standard Fiat 500 with special pistons, valves, a high-lift camshaft and large downdraft Solex or Weber carburettors. The power output increased from 22bhp at 4,400rpm to 32bhp at 6,000rpm. The suspension was stiffened and lowered, and the coachwork adorned with Abarth badges inside and out. Today, genuine period Abarth cars and performance parts are much sought after by collectors worldwide.

The car presented here started life as a standard right-hand drive 1967 Fiat 500F but was completely restored between 2015-2017 to create an Abarth replica by our vendor, a prominent member of the Owners Club. He was able to utilise the assistance of the ‘Museo Della 500’ in Italy who provided drawings and photographs of an Abarth component kit to help accurately replicate this period details of a 595 SS. The bodywork had a full bare-metal restoration and was painted in the correct Abarth/Fiat Bianco 233 paint colour with all the correct badges, logos and decals, plus new Borrani wheels and tyres. The interior has fully reupholstered seats, new door-cards and new rubber mats. Also fitted is an Abarth instrument pod with new Veglia instruments and a period-correct steering wheel, plus SS and 595 logos on the dashboard.

The engine was completely rebuilt to 595 specification, with a type 110F.000 block, ported & flowed cylinder head with larger valves, 73.5mm bore & 70.0mm stroke, compression ratio 10.5:1, with a new steel-forged crankshaft and H-Beam conrods, a 35/75 Abarth-spec camshaft, a Dell'Orto FZD carburettor, all coupled-up to a new synchro gearbox, and vented via a Monza twin exhaust system. The front suspension was upgraded to an independent fully adjustable set-up, with coilovers replacing the leaf-springs. The front brakes likewise were also enhanced, with a Fiat disc conversion.

The exceptional little car has only covered c.1,000 miles since this most thorough of restorations/upgrades, having recently been utilised as centrepiece in a Fiat dealership, run by a long-time friend of our vendor (who sadly, due to ill-health, is now unable to drive the car). The thoroughness of its ground-up restoration, to ensure accuracy and period-correctness, plus gaining much-improved driving attributes, is a credit to our vendor and we hope it finds a like-minded marque-enthusiast to fully enjoy and appreciate it. We believe that this 595 Replica is presented with a realistic guide price and is most certainly one of the better examples on offer at this time.