Fiat 500 Abarth

Small but wicked: That’s the well-worn saying applied to Karl Abarth’s race-tuned street cars of the 1950s and 60s, and it fits the Fiat 500 Abarth to a tee. Building on decades of refinement on European racetracks, the Fiat 500 Abarth melds Italian sensuality with brash, high-performance engineering. No wonder the Abarth--with its iconic, angular scorpion logo plastered all over—launched with commercials featuring a stunning Romanian supermodel and bad boy Charlie Sheen. Sexy but wicked.

The Abarth’s lineage traces back to Austrian racer Abarth, who began his career in the early 1900s racing motorcycles until nearly dying in an accident. Switching to after-market auto parts production and auto racing; Abarth modified a Fiat 1100 into his debut race car, the 204A Roadstar, in which he won the Italian 1100 and Formula 2 championships in 1949. Over the next decade, Abarth continued to modify and race automobiles, and in 1958, he broke six land speed records in the Fiat 595 Abarth - modified from a Fiat 500. That model race car notched nearly 900 victories in its seven-year run from 1958 to 1965. Along the way, numerous street vehicles with the Abarth badge appeared, coming from both Abarth’s own shop and other manufacturers, appearing sporadically on specialized editions over the decade