Abarth Simca Chronicles

Review by Pete Vack

Of all the myriad of Abarths constructed between 1955 and 1972, among the fastest, most attractive and best handling are the rare Abarth Simcas, born in 1962 as a result of a deal between Carlo Abarth and Enrico Pigozzi, the Italian who established the French Simca firm, spurred on by the Viennese engineer Rudy Hruska, then working for Simca.

During the 1950s, Simca had managed to undo the Fiat apron strings, first with the Aronde, which sold in significant numbers both in France and abroad (including the US), and the V8 powered Vedette, a stranger to these shores but a good seller in France. At the end of 1961, Simca introduced the 1000 sedan, the first rear engined Simca. The new car was a definite step up from the Fiat 600; more power, better handling and better brakes. The project began at Fiat, assigned to Oscar Montabone who worked directly under Dante Giacaosa.

The Coda Tronca 2000 almost appears as if it is lengthened compared to the earlier version. But the key is the abrupt cutoff, not the short or long of it.

Pigozzi was fascinated by Abarth’s successes and the resulting publicity for Fiat and asked Abarth to do the same with the new Simca. For Simca, the rub off was important, but if it was to be called and advertised as an Abarth Simca, exactly what parts would be Simca? For the sedan, Abarth modified the 1000 cc pushrod production engine to three different levels of tune, designed a different dashboard, improved handling and brakes and used the familiar Abarth logos on the body. But the real Abarth Simcas actually came first, and were fitted with the first all-Abarth 1300cc DOHC dry sump engine wedged politely in the tail of a Beccaris-built body folded on a steel Simca 1000 platform chassis, suitably modified. Steering and suspension were also Simca 1000 based. There were three versions; the first was the 1300, from which came the 2000, and the 1600, which was a special engine with a five main bearing crank rather than four. According to Luciano Greggio, It was not further developed because the FIA classes favored a full 2000 cc.

The Book

Books on Abarth abound, but few are model specific. The best, in our opinion, is Abarth, The Machines, the Man by Luciano Greggio, which covers the entire history of Abarth but does so with intelligent detail and great photos. Abarth Simca, a new book by Gino Giugno, is one of the first which covers a particular Abarth model in depth, and is most welcome.

Covered in considerable detail are the Targa Florio events that witnessed the successes of the Abarth Simcas,

Abarth Simca is in Italian, but since the text is mainly captions and results, translation is relatively easy. This book is quite different than most. In attempting to create a book about almost any race car, one seeks to accumulate the historic images of the cars, which are in many cases grainy, out of focus, or scans from old publications. For both the historian and restorer, these are the gold.

Giugno reconstructs the racing history of the Abarth Simca using action photos from a wide variety of sources, including many of the drivers who competed in the events with an Abarth. Clearly, his goal was not to provide excellent photos of restored Abarth Simcas but to find and publish every photo relevant to the participation of Abarth Simcas in the GT races and hillclimbs in Italy, France and Austria and the U.S. This he has done, using up 560 pages to do so. There is no actual number count of the images but there are at least 700, mostly black and white images in addition to about 150 color photos.

The 2000 Abarth motor had a dry sump and 58 mm Webers and produced 187 hp.

Giugno provides plenty of technical details and specifications before launching into the epic coverage of the races in which the Abarth Simca participated, and describes the change to a ‘coda tronca’ tail after the arrival of Colucci to Abarth from Alfa, where he worked on the Alfa TZ1. Not only was the Abarth Simca fast and a race winner, but it was beautiful, making it one of the great GT cars of the 1960s. The car was an immediate success; in 1963 alone, the Abarth Simca 1300 scored over 90 class wins.

The book is arranged in chronological order. It is difficult for us to know if Giugno has thoroughly researched events in France and the US, but Le Mans and Sebring are included in his research, including the races entered by Otto Linton (no stranger to these pages). Serial numbers are included in the text and results where known; presumably, there is a lot of work left to be done to ascertain the number of Abarth Simcas built and the serial number history of each.

Plenty for Periscopio fans; here is Donau-Pokal at the Vienna Flugplatzrennen in 1967.