1974 Fiat Abarth X1/9 Prototipo

Didier Marcacci, Fiat Abarth X1/9 Prototipo, Montée Historique de Beaune-St Romain, 2016

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Fiat Abarth, Turin, Italy. Abarth was a specialist sports car maker founded by Carlo Abarth that was sold to Fiat in 1971.  Amongst other things, Abarth prepared Fiat's rally cars.  The Fiat Abarth X1/9 Prototipo was intended as a replacement rally car to the Fiat Abarth 124.  It was powered by a 1.8 litre engine derived from the 124  and was introduced in 1973.  About 5 genuine cars were produced and there are also a number of replicas.  The rally history was mainly in Italian National events.  It did win the Alpi Orientali and the Coppa Trabucchi rallies in 1974.  Its most famous driver was Clay Regazzoni who drove one in the 1974 Giro d'Italia but retired. Due to Fiat politics and other projects such as the 131 rally car the Fiat Abarth X1/9 project was not pursued after 1974.

Fiat X1/9

1979 Fiat X1/9 à Reims pour le départ de la Monte Carlo Rallye Historique 2015

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Fiat & Bertone, Lingotto & Turin, Italy.    Produced by FIAT from 1972 to 1982 and by Bertone who had always produced the monocoque body from 1982 to 1989.  It was a nice handling small mid-engined sports car with removable hardtop. It had a 1,290cc Fiat engine until 1979 when it was upgraded to a 1.5L Fiat engine.   An earlier 1,300cc car is shown below.

Here is a 1973 1300cc car from the same event.