1959 Fiat Abarth 750 by Allemano

This little guy came to us about two years ago. The owner bought it after seeing it listed on BAT thinking it would be a good candidate for a mechanical refresh and leave the rest patinaed. In her defense it looked good in the sellers photos but when it got to us we found it in pretty bad shape. The alloy nose had been hit hard and crudely beaten back into shape and the car had a few repaints. I managed to find a chip of the original paint color under the fuel tank so that was matched.

So the tear down began...

At this point we started to see that the floors and rockers needed replacing and that the restoration was going to be a bit more involved than she anticipated. We agreed on a monthly budget and worked within that. That explains the two+ year process.

The original Abarth 750 motor was rebuilt. We saved the original forged abarth crank, had SAINZ make custom forged rods and employed JE to make custom oversized pistons to our spec. The cam was reground to a slightly more aggressive profile to better match our 9.8:1 CR.

I treated the original transmission to new synchros, bearings and new gears where required. Luckily it retained the taller Abarth final drive, which was in great shape.

Then everything else got the treatment

And I mean everything. All the original hardware was stripped and replated and reinstalled in its proper location.

The rest is reassembly. Body came back from paintwork and it was put together.

And then you get to that magical point when it goes away to the upholsterers for a few weeks and when it comes back your jaw hits the asphalt.

So I just have some tweaking to do on the header bow for the convertible top before they finish it up and then there are some final adjustments and then it heads to Monterey for the Quail.

Thanks for looking.

Oh yeah. This car fits me like a well worn Chuck Taylor. It was instantly comfortable. I love it and will be sad to see it go, but we gotta make room for the other cars.

Wow, amazing work! How many of those were made? Is the body all alloy, or mix of alloy and steel parts?

Nice job on a cool car! What's the name of the shop and where is it?

Beautiful work! Neat little Abarth.

Woody wrote: Wow, amazing work! How many of those were made? Is the body all alloy, or mix of alloy and steel parts?

There are no records of how many but it is estimated around 300.

The body is alloy above the rockers. Everything below is steel. Actually the firewall and front bulkhead are steel as well. You can see where they cut the fiat 600 body off and riveted the alloy to it with copper rivets to stop the electrolysis. That polished aluminum strip covers the seam.

In reply to Rad_Capz:

Our shop is in Eugene Oregon. Our official name is "vintage underground" but we are known as Sports car shop restorations due to our strong ties with www.sportscarshop.com.

Looks like a nice place to work!

Once again fantastic work!

Nicely done. It wasn't that nice when it was new!

Abarths and cars like it are odd in the restoration realm. So little performance for the buck it seems odd to justify spending that kind of money restoring one, but the rarity and oddball factor coupled with the unique history of Abarth makes this a real attractive car to Italian car weirdos like myself. I'm glad to owner saw the value in it.

Copper rivets to prevent electrolysis in 1959?!

This may be the earliest known acknowledgement of the possible existence of metal corrosion in automobiles by the Italians. I'm surprised that Carlo Abarth wasn't immediately excommunicated by Paul XXIII.

Beautiful ... great work! I'm glad you were able to work out a plan with the owner and glad that she stuck with it. Another great little car saved.

ddavidv wrote: Nicely done. It wasn't that nice when it was new! Abarths and cars like it are odd in the restoration realm. So little performance for the buck it seems odd to justify spending that kind of money restoring one, but the rarity and oddball factor coupled with the unique history of Abarth makes this a real attractive car to Italian car weirdos like myself. I'm glad to owner saw the value in it.

I once heard this entire class of odd-ball Italian cars referred to as "Etceterini Class"

For more of the same (but different)...http://www.cliffreuter.com/etceterinihomepage.htm

Well, if you're just going to half-ass it...

The hard top versions of these called the double-bubble have been selling in the $80-100k range. So this is a good candidate for the full restoration. Only one picture on the rotisserie shows its diminutive size but not very well. I like to think of these as the super cars of the micro cars.

The double bubbles were built by Zagato. I build those too.

The Allemano cars are built MUCH better than the Zagato cars, but lack the racing heritage.

IMO the pinnacle of the rear engine Abarth etceterini is the Allemano bodied 850 coupe

What I wouldn't do to own one. They are still cheaper than the double bubbles at this point.

When I looked at the first photo my first reaction was "why", but as I progressed through the photos this quickly changed to "wow". Good work!

All versions of those cars are cute, and the nice thing is that you can drive them at full bore without anyone in traffic around you realizing you are doing anything but cruising. They are a lot of fun!