Today in Turin via Carlo Abarth was officially named, in honor of the first 70 years of the Abarth brand and the strong bond shared by its founder and the capital city of the Piedmont region since 1949.
The attendees at the ceremony included Francesco Sicari, Chairman of the City Council, Sergio Rolando, Councilor for the Budget, Planning and Place Names, Luisa Bernardini, President of Constituency 2, Luca Napolitano, Head of EMEA Fiat and Abarth brands, and Roberto Giolito, Head of FCA Heritage, who together unveiled the street sign for the section of road between Corso Orbassano and Via Plava. The headquarters of the Home of the Scorpion are currently located here, as is the Heritage HUB, which houses some of the most important vehicles produced by Abarth throughout its history.
“This year, Abarth is celebrating its 70th anniversary. Naming a street in Turin after its founder Carlo Abarth is certainly the best way to end a record-breaking year of celebrations on a high.” stated Luca Napolitano. “I’d like to thank the City of Turin for this acknowledgement of a person who revolutionized the world of racing cars with his ingenious intuition and unique developments. Our community, which currently has 110,000 fans and more than 70 clubs in Europe, also wanted to participate in this historical moment, bearing testimony to the high level of esteem enjoyed by the brand and its history and paying tribute to its founder. All of this makes me extremely proud.”
“The tribute the Municipality of Turin is paying today to Carlo Abarth is particularly significant, because it was precisely here in this city,” – continued Roberto Giolito, “where Abarth came from Austria to fulfill his dream, immersed in a community with a prolific, rich experience in manufacturing cars. And the choice of the section of road to be named after the founder of Abarth is no coincidence. On the contrary it serves as proof that the values and ideals of the great legacy of car manufacturing in Turin are still a strong driving force behind our company’s business. Further proof of this, located at just a few meters from the new Via Abarth, can be found in the Heritage Hub, the headquarters of Abarth & C.but and the FCA EMEA Design Center.”
Carlo Abarth (1908-1979) was born in Austria but chose to live in Italy and specifically in Turin, where, in 1949, he began his career at Cisitalia, later opening the first branch of his and the pilot Guido Scagliarini’s company, Abarth & C, in Via Trecate. Since then the history of the Scorpion brand has never looked back, racking up sporting and industrial achievements galore, launching revolutionary tuning kits and achieving legendary victories on the track. During those same years, the company also forged an unbreakable partnership with Fiat, the historic brand of cars from Turin, established 120 years ago. In fact, the first Scorpion car was the 204 A, a successor of the Fiat 1100, which went down in the history of the automotive world when, on April 10, 1950, Tazio Nuvolari memorably drove the car to victory in his last race, the Palermo-Monte Pellegrino.
Also in Turin, on July 4, 1957, the legendary Fiat 500 was launched. Carlo Abarth fell in love with it and was sure that with just a little fine tuning, it would have all the potential of an extremely high-performance vehicle. This led to the creation of the first Fiat Abarth 595s, which began a winning streak on all kinds of tracks. At the same time, the brand also launched its famous “Abarth tuning kits” for developing the “500”, by now an object of desire for the general public. In the 1960s, the Scorpion brand was in its heyday. To meet the growing demand, Abarth decided to move its production to a new factory located in Corso Marche, again in Turin. And so now, precisely 40 years after Carlo Abarth’s passing, the capital city of Piedmont has named a street after the genius, the first person to recognize the potential that lay in tuning and performing technical upgrades on standard production cars.
United by the same will to celebrate the greatness and history of the Abarth brand, more than 5,000 fans and over 3,000 Abarth vehicles came together a few weeks ago to attend the largest Scorpion meet ever. And the brand had a gift in store for these fans, the loyal guardians of the founder’s philosophy: the world preview of the limited edition Abarth 695 70° Anniversario, featuring a new adjustable spoiler.
