A few days ago a friend passed the link to this portal on to me.  I am excited to share with you the fun I had with two Abarths years ago.  I would also enjoy learning the status of either of the cars that may exist today.  I have seen a post that at least one of them may be in Japan.

I became aware of Fiat Abarths in the 1960s.  At least two, a Zagato and an Allemano Coupe were then being raced at Waterford Hills north of Detroit and there were others including Allemano Spiders in the Detroit area.

When I returned from military service in 1970, the Fiat Club of Detroit had recently formed.  I had owned three Fiats by that time and I joined the club and resumed autocrossing with my street car.  It wasn’t long before I decided to get a car for autocrossing that I didn’t have to drive to work on Monday.  One of the club members had a Double Bubble he had wanted to restore but found he didn’t have the time.  It was missing a few bits but nothing I needed for competition and the price was right.  I bought it.

My friend had tried to have it repainted “competition orange” but the paint wasn’t mixed right.  It came out more salmon color than orange but I figured if I could make it fast enough I could stand the teasing.  My friends and competitors dubbed it The Pink Panther.  It had a tired 600D engine in it.  A young Italian mechanic at a local Fiat dealership had a 600D in which he had “Abarthized” the engine.  He sold the 600D to me and I swapped the engines.  It was a good engine and the result was many first-in-class trophies for me.  I also cut the rear springs a little, which helped.

In early 1973, I started a new job with more income and decided to pursue a dream of road racing.  I was sure I could beat the Sprites who owned H Production at Waterford Hills with a Fiat 850 Spider properly prepared.  I sold the Zagato to a high school teacher who lived near Holland Michigan and had a small collection of miscellaneous cars.  I visited it once a year or so later but I don’t know where it went from there.

The 850 Spider was very good to me.  Over several years it achieved first in 1/3 of its races and another 1/3 of seconds.  It was class champion one of the years.  Only two mechanical DNF’s.

When I was starting to think of what to do next, SCCA made a rule change that allowed the Fiat 850 series engines to be used in the 600 based Fiat Abarths.  That intrigued me.  I was already winning in the 850 Spider and with a Zagato or Record Monza I could drop 300 pounds, have smaller frontal area and presumably better aerodynamics.  I could see a class lap record that might stand for many years.  But, I would need a solid car to build.

Several years before I had seen locally a Record Monza that was beautiful, almost perfect.  And, it had several features the Zagato didn’t that would be very beneficial.  I tracked down the person who still had it and was anxious to sell.  Again, the price was right and it didn’t matter that it also had a stock 600D engine.  The only body issue was a small amount of damage to a rear fender from a minor incident.

This car was almost certainly a 1000 twin cam originally.  And, it may have been a competition version.   The seats were bolstered.  There was what looked like a factory roll bar (which would never pass inspection).  It had a special fuel tank that filled almost all the front trunk.  It had four-wheel disc brakes and a horizontal strut to locate the front spring.  It had an underbody auxiliary radiator that I moved to the front.  Unlike the Zagato, the bulkhead between the engine compartment and the cabin was not a flat vertical plane.  It bulged into the cabin.  You could see the top of the transaxle from the engine compartment.  I think that was to provide room for the distributors for the twin cam.

I didn’t have to do much to the body except to add safety equipment and I didn’t want to make any changes that would be difficult or impossible for later restoration.  A very good welder built a beautiful roll cage to protect me.  I used the stock driver seat.  I removed the door glass and winders but saved everything.  I tacked on plastic aftermarket flares built for Mini-Coopers to meet regulations for covering wider wheels and Formula Super Vee front slicks.

Some of you may know that while the Fiat 850 engines will bolt into the 600 based cars, the engines rotate in opposite directions.  That meant I had to reverse the engine rotation.  I sold the 850 Spider as a roller and kept its 903 engine as a mule but later built a fresh engine using many of the special parts from the successful engine.  It was an extensive engineering project but it worked and in a few months I was competing with the Record Monza at Waterford Hills.

I was able to find exactly the right gear set for Waterford Hills and to solve some other parts needs from FAZA and my friend Marion Dec (who then owned a Zagato and an Allemano Coupe).  The car handled wonderfully and was fast, but did not go substantially faster than the 850 Spider had.  Maybe it was me and maybe it was one detail I had missed when doing the reverse rotation.

The reverse rotation was a story too long to tell in this post.  I will be happy to share more details if any of you are interested.

I reached the point where I thought I would need to cut the car in order to get the speed and reliability I wanted.  I didn’t want to do that.  I found another car to build for racing in another class and I sold the Record Monza to Mike Shoen for his collection.  I have seen at least one post on this portal that that Mike sold a Record Monza to someone in Japan.  To the best of my knowledge mine is the only one he owned.  I would be delighted to make contact with the current owner to share more details and learn the current status of the car.