Abarth is an Italian racing car maker founded by Italian-Austrian Karl (Carlo) Abarth in Turin in 1949.
In the 1960s, Abarth & C. S.r.l was quite successful in hillclimbing and sports car racing, mainly in classes from 850cc up to 2000cc, competing with Porsche 904 and Ferrari Dino. Hans Herrmann was a factory driver from 1962 until 1965, winning the 500km Nürburgring in 1963 with Teddy Pilette.
Later, Johann Abt was promised by Carlo Abarth that he could drive a factory car for free if he won all the races he entered—which Abt nearly did, winning 29 of 30, the 30th being a second.
Along with its racing cars, Abarth produced high-performance exhaust pipes. Later, Abarth diversified in producing various tuning kits for road vehicles, mainly for Fiat. Abarth was also associated in producing sports or racing cars with Porsche and Simca.
In 2007 Fiat Automobiles SpA re-launched the brand with the Grande Punto Abarth and the Grande Punto Abarth S2000. The brand is to be seen as a separate division to the main Fiat brand in a similar way that the Renault Sport brand is to the mainstream Renault.
To mark the return of Abarth created a real neat website to mark the return of the marque. Click here to see it. Sports Car Digest especially enjoyed the “history” pages.
[Source: Wikipedia]
