"There's probably no other more powerful collaboration in the world of car culture than that which has existed between Pininfarina and Ferrari. For 60 years the design company has been responsible for the majority of the Ferraris we know and love "
Mystery Pininfarina Curvitude
Every now and then we stumble upon an image that beguils as well as excites.
Out of all the beautifully-rendered concept cars from the period of the late sixties and the early seventies, this is one of the most mysterious we’ve come across.
Looking closely at the badge on the rear three quarter panel you can see it says ‘Fiat Abarth 2000’ – and the Pininfarina logo is in its usual place on the side panel toward the bow. But extensive consultation of our friend Mr Wikipedia, as well as Pininfarina and Abarth web manifestations, cannot shore up any record of what this car whatsoever.
Seems that the blogosphere has reached a similar fact-free postages of what is an undoubtedly one of those concepts that was influenced by and influenced in turn cars from designers like Bertone and Ghia and Zagato.
Almost all of the leading Italian coach-builders were outdoing one another in the audacity of their futuristic designs. The era seemed to be all about pushing possibilities of late 20th century motoring in exquisitely curved steel.
The louvres on the engine cowling, the flip-top lid as well as the trumpet-like exhaust recall some more familiar experiments of the era – particularly Pininfarina’s own space-mobile the Modulo but this red beauty seems to exist on an entirely different plane.
Perhaps it was a hallucination that crystallised in a fashion photographer’s lens – or perhaps there’s a gaping hole in our retro-motoring knowledge.
Any more information our dear readers may be able to offer is of course, more than welcome.
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It looks like variation on the fibreglass bodied Nova built in the UK that used a VW Beetle engine, in fact that looks like a very Beetle type exhaust sticking out of the back.
A number of you have been kind enough to point out that the Scorpio is actually based upon the Pininfarina Ferrari concept car on a chassis of 512 Can Am racer which was displayed at Turin in 1969. Apprently it had a mid-mounted 4.9 litre V12 engine. Thanks particularly to Chris Nelson.
Very nice and the car’s not bad either lol wonder how high it is, my Gilbern t11 prototype is 38ins
Built around the same time as the Ferrari, but don’t confuse the 2, it is on an Abarth 2000. It still exists and is in a museum in Japan……..gallery Abarth
It is similar to Ferrari in looks, but on an Abarth 2000 chassis. It resides in Gllery Abarth in Japan
Hi
A quick image search on Google has the same pic and the legend “Pininfarina Fiat Abarth 2000 Scorpio concept car” adjacent. Hope that helps!
Very nice and the car's not bad either …wonder how high it is my Gilbern t11 prototype is 38ins
My initial thought was that it was a kit car.
a 5 second look on google presented this…….. its a hell of a link, please copy and paste to your browsers search bar
http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http:/…
Try looking down the de tomaso route. Possible sport 1000 or vellelunga types.I have worked on a few that have very similar lines, though mostly spiders. Which it looks like. There really is not much info on them though.
My god, how did I miss that? Brilliant. Thank you.
I emailed Poalo Martin asking who styled this and the Berlinetta 512s special and he sent an email back telling me who the sylist was (same guy for both apparently)
Unfortunately I have forgotten his name (frustrating I know)
This is interesting to me as, far from being merely curvy, I think it is probably the earliest example of an ‘Angular’ style car with an enclosed canopy, pre-dating the Countach by a couple of years
I can’t work out whether this or the Berlinetta 512s came first