Fiat X1/9 Abarth Prototipo Thread | FerrariChat
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Fiat X1/9 Abarth Prototipo Thread

Discussion in 'Other Italian' started by Duane_Estill, Apr 5, 2013.

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  1. Duane_Estill

    Duane_Estill F1 Rookie

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    #1 Duane_Estill, Apr 5, 2013
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 7, 2017
    The Fiat X1/9 started life as the Autobianchi Runabout. It was designed by Marcello Gandini, the man who designed the Lamborghini's Miura, Countach, Diablo, Espada, Urraco, and many others. His most winning design is the Lancia Stratos.

    The "baby Miura" as it was called by Fiat management, was developed as a gas crisis sports car, but forward thinking with many design principles that were years ahead of their time. The frame of the X1/9 features a specially designed cage around the driver's compartment that is designed to dissipate the energy of the collision away from the driver's compartment, again, years ahead in thinking. As a result, the X is slightly heavier in the frame department. It was also a little underpowered to boot, starting life as the 1.4 Liter SOHC designed by Aurelio Lampredi, who also designed the Fiat twin cam (Spider) as well as several V12 designs for Ferrari that were primarily racing engines.

    Back to the X1/9. Fiat decided that the sporty X1/9 would be the rally car in it's early 70's program. The factory effort was handled by the newly acquired Abarth works. Another road racing version of the car was done by Dallara, but that's another story. The factory works racers were built and started racing with no success, they were too slow and too heavy. The factory pulled support for the X as a racing platform, replaced it with the up and coming 131 family sedan, destroyed the rally cars in house, handed off the X's successor to newly acquired Lancia, which eventually ended up with the world champion Stratos. But this story is focused on that short-lived time when the X1/9 was the factory rally car for Fiat. The Abarth Prototipo was a purpose built car not based on the factory car, the Prototipo was just that, a prototype, it had to be called that because the factory had not homologated a higher performance version of the car, which only briefly saw the light of day as the "X1/9 Abarth Stradale" and only a few were ever built, a few picture below show on that made it over here.

    The whole back half of the car was replaced with a tube space frame, the single cam engine was replaced with a 1.6 twin cam from the Fiat 124 Spider, and punched out to 1840 and fitted with a 16 valve head and twin 44 weber IDF's and rated at 190 hp. The car never was a consistent winner, it was underpowered. By the time the issue of droppinhg the Dino V6 into the car, which was the proposed solution, the 131 was on the horizon, and it was over basically before it began.

    There are several companies that still offer fender kits, of varying levels of quality, accuracy, and completeness. The best of these is Larsen in the U.K. and they offer a complete kit including two choices of dash and front bonnet. The story has many twists and turns, on two continents, and it may never be known, but it's a cool car, and is one of the best looking do-ups of the X1/9. There will be several pictures posted, some of them magazine articles.
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  2. Duane_Estill

    Duane_Estill F1 Rookie

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    #2 Duane_Estill, Apr 5, 2013
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 7, 2017
    The article posted here traces the story of the development, campaigning, and demise of the Abarth Prototipo. I've researched this fairly extensively and this story covers all the bases of the story, but might be missing some of the later details. It does get the biggest chunk of the story, and I really have not found another place that pulls all this together, and it's worth preserving.
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  3. Duane_Estill

    Duane_Estill F1 Rookie

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    #3 Duane_Estill, Apr 5, 2013
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  4. Duane_Estill

    Duane_Estill F1 Rookie

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    #4 Duane_Estill, Apr 5, 2013
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  5. Duane_Estill

    Duane_Estill F1 Rookie

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    #5 Duane_Estill, Apr 5, 2013
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  6. Duane_Estill

    Duane_Estill F1 Rookie

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    #6 Duane_Estill, Apr 5, 2013
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    This shows Al Cosentinos bus and "tow car" at the Jacksonville pier loading what was apparently intended to be the X1/9 Abarth Stradale, he explains this below the photo, and the red car in the other picture is further evidence as the fender flares and snorkel were unique to this car. There were several later cars that were referred to as FAZA X1/9's in various states of trim and tune. Whether or not there was more than this one actual Abrth Stradale remains a mystery. Note Gotti wheels.
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  7. Duane_Estill

    Duane_Estill F1 Rookie

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    #7 Duane_Estill, Apr 5, 2013
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  8. Duane_Estill

    Duane_Estill F1 Rookie

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    #8 Duane_Estill, Apr 5, 2013
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  9. Duane_Estill

    Duane_Estill F1 Rookie

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    #9 Duane_Estill, Apr 5, 2013
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    The green and white car is apparently one of the original factory livery colors, and it is displayed here on a FAZA X1/9 with alot of Abarth treatment making it like a Prototipo for the street, with FAZA engine mods. This is a apparently a California car and was in a large Fiat collection. Al Cosentino did have a white/green livery car at his shop in Daytona Beach, which I'll show in the next post.
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  10. Duane_Estill

    Duane_Estill F1 Rookie

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    #10 Duane_Estill, Apr 5, 2013
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  11. hyenahf

    hyenahf F1 Rookie

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    #11 hyenahf, Apr 8, 2013
    duane

    pretty cool post! i know a little about that car, anyhow i can say the green/white one was just a pretty mild upgraded stock car. he tried to sell the car to me decades ago but in the end the very stunning beautiful steam roller campys were sold off and some of other cool bits off the car. the motor was mildly modified as well as the suspension. it wasnt a abarth 16v car. I may still have the specs he sent me somewhere.

    so sad that the rear apron got added later spoiling the very rare helvetica fender flares that were also found in the early Scuderia Fillipinetti cars. I recall these car were developed by michael parks of the stratos fame.

    Crazy Al had a stunning collection including the 030 !

    Gotta miss that guy…

    hf
     
  12. Duane_Estill

    Duane_Estill F1 Rookie

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    #12 Duane_Estill, Apr 10, 2013
    I had always wondered about that livery, and the origins of the car, and a exactly how far it was down the FAZA/Abarth path. There is a red one that was called a FAZA X1/9 with a lesser setup, solid red, that an Fchatter named JJay911 bought several years ago that I think was one of the Al era cars.

    I would be interested in seeing the specs for the white/green car. It strikes me as something of a mystery as I wonder where Al was going with it, in a race direction or further along the Abarth Stradale formula seen in the red car with the black colored fender flares and snorkel.

    What an interesting insight to the story you have......I never met Al, but my mechanic in Memphis had dealt with FAZA early on years ago, and he had worked on X1/9's since new, and helped me keep mine on the road. I still have one, a 79, with a FAZA 35/75 cam in it. It's my 7th or 8th X and by far the most modified.

    Thanks for that feedback....I was starting to wonder if there were many here who are more than a little familiar with the "Baby Miura."
     
  13. hyenahf

    hyenahf F1 Rookie

    May 25, 2004
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    #13 hyenahf, Apr 11, 2013
    i dont think Al had any intentions with that white car other than it being a show case for the parts he was selling. Over the years many of the parts were taken off and sold before he sold the car. it use to have the super wide 4 spoke campys and dcnf's. i forgot what the cam specs were and a whole host of other things as well.

    Remember al already had a bunch of the works abarth TC x19 along with the prototype stradale. one of which where he had to butchered the car with sohc motor to make it eligible for SCCA. his catalogs use contain rants of his beef with the sanctioning “rats” at the SCCA. it been like decades but i recall him saying at least 2 of the abarths went to japan along with the 030 were he had a huge following for his parts.

    I don’t have many personal stories but I meet him a few times when I picked up parks.
    He comes of as abrasive and confrontational in his catalogs but my dealings with him were insightful and pretty darn entertaining. Al was a straight shooter and told it how it was… I will miss that colorful man.
     

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