Abarth Scorpion Prototipo

Cars

fascinating door banger from Abarth, 1971

We love Abarth

There’s something about the cars the Scorpion brand produced that makes you think of oil smelling workshops, the passion of road racing and charismatic swarthy little Italian men who can handle a spanner as well as the pasta maker.

And this prototype from 1971 is about as Abarth as Abarth can be.

The company made a series of test cars and specials all throughout the sixties and seventies, some of which went on to seed full production cars across the Italian industry – but many, like this one we think, remained just a simple and singular manifestation of a few good ideas and a few hundred man hours in a workshop.

It’s going to be for sale at Auction at the RM event in London in September, and there’s not a detailed description on their site as yet – but we love the simple incongruity of the car, with it’s little carb-loaded lump crammed into the tail section.

The colour scheme accentuates the simple panel work and that interior is about as man cave-like as it’s possible to be. You can smell the musky cologne but the car looks humorous, cheeky, irreverent.

And that’s what we think of when we think about Abarth.

 

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