Fiat Strada Abarth
When Maserati fanatic Doug Blair wanted to relive his Eighties youth with a Fiat Strada Abarth, only a toplevel restoration would do. Even if it defied logic
Ferrari, Maserati, Alfa Romeo... these are some of the few Italian marques worth investing money into. That’s the way the classic car scene thinks and it has done for decades. Since the boom in values began some ten years ago, more money has been spent by more restorers than ever before. Six-figure rebuilds can actually pay for themselves. But what if you took a similarly demanding approach with a Fiat Strada?
As the hospital orderlies buckled you into your new jacket, you’d try to explain that this wasn’t just any Strada, this was a 130TC – the scarce Abarth special with Fiat’s twin-cam huffing through a pair of twin-choke Webers. And though the performance garnish went down very well, there were serious problems with the car it was based on. The Strada seemed to be trying its hardest to live down to every cliché about rapid-rusting Italian rubbish.
Price was a problem, too. You really had to want a 130TC to shell out £7800 for a new one in the mid-eighties. That was £300 more than an Alfasud Sprint Cloverleaf, £600 more than an XR3I and over £800 more than a Peugeot 205 GTI. Between 1984 and 1988, only 900 cars found UK buyers. They’re a lot more expensive today, especially for a mint example. The owner of this car decided the only way to guarantee the result was to restore it as if the badge on the back spelled a different F-word altogether.
‘If you want a genuinely good one, the only way is to do it yourself,’ says Doug Blair. He’d been looking for a Strada Abarth for a while, keen to relive his fond memories of owning one when they were new. After examining the few he could find for sale, he realised that corrosion and deterioration were unavoidable.
So in 2010 he bought the best he could find. It was black, it came with an MOT, it was outwardly smart and okay to drive. Doug brought it to Emblem Sports Cars in Poole, Dorset. It’s used to restoring classic Ferraris, Maseratis and other exotica, and had worked with Doug before. He and Emblem’s boss Martin Chatfield came up with a plan. That plan sounds simple, but it’s remarkable for what it implies – have the car stripped, have the car repaired and painted, have the car rebuilt and trimmed. And not by just anyone – each job would be performed by a trusted specialist more used to working with Emblem’s usual upmarket stock-in-trade.
Andy Bowley and David Summers of Red Motori in Blandford Forum are best known for their work on classic Alfas. They began the stripdown in February 2011. Andy recalls, ‘It was a good “on the road” car, but when we started lifting the carpets and removing the parcel shelf to get at the rear suspension turrets, we soon started to find holes.’
They also realised the extent of replacement parts that would be needed. All Strada trim, instruments, interior parts and switchgear is scarce; Strada Abarth 130TC stuff is like a decent joke at Prime Minister’s question time – painfully rare to the point of extinction. Doug bought a basket-case 130TC parts car, but it rendered fewer useable items than he’d hoped, although someone bought the stripped remains, intending to restore it. Perhaps it, too, will return to the road one day.
Meanwhile, the black car’s denuded bodyshell went from Red Motori to Mitchell Motors in Salisbury, a high-end bodyshop run by Andrew Mitchell. Andrew recalls, ‘It was rusty in all the places you could possibly imagine a Fiat being rusty in. We blasted it with superfine glass powder at only 28psi; it was the most gentle method we could use that still had enough bite to remove the rust.’
Having created an ultra-light Abarth bodyshell with enough holes to strain a giant pot of pasta, Mitchell Motors had to stitch it back together. ‘I think Doug found us a wing and a rear panel, but
‘130TC spares are like a decent joke at Prime Minister’s question time – painfully rare’
the rest was all made from scratch. That’s what happens here… if you bring it to me, beware, because it will be done properly or not at all. That means a whole heap of hours.’
Something in excess of 700 hours later, the perfect new steel and freshly stripped old metal was protected by much etch primer, a 3M two-pack polymer rubber coating on the underside, then lots of primer and rub-downs for the upper surface. Clear lacquer over that jet-black base coat was finished with 2000-grit wet sanding and then a burnish from some polishing compound.
Poor old Red Motori then had to work carefully around the most beautifully-painted Strada bodyshell on the planet as it re-installed the engine and painstakingly built up the finished car. Doug likes the hunt for rare spares, so Andy Bowley would email him a list and parts would start to appear. Some, for safety’s sake, were new – brakes and seatbelts for example – but others like suspension components received a powder coat and went back on the car.
One fascinating challenge was created by those chunky Abarth sport seats. Doug, with surreal foresight, had bought a roll of peculiar black and red Fiat seat cloth in the Nineties. More than ten years later, he’d finally bought the car to go with it, and its front seats were tatty. Emblem sent them to ace trimmer Kevin Baggs, based in the same yard in Poole. Kevin explains, ‘The centre panels of the seats were easily replaced with this fabric, but the plain black side-sections on the bolsters were harder. In the end I worked out that we could dodge between the pattern repeats on the cloth, even removing the red embroidered pattern if necessary, and trim all of both seats with this one roll.’
Doug has ended up with exactly what he wanted – not just a decent restored example or a nice second-hand survivor, but a perfect new one. Ever since it was finished, he’s been busy enjoying it. ‘It took me back to the Eighties,’ he says. ‘I could have upgraded it or changed it, but I wanted it to drive like they did back then. So it might not have modern brakes but it’s still quick, still a real handful. It makes you aware of what a breakthrough it was.’
Now it’s our turn. Before the off, some cabin logistics need attending to. These Recaros feel just as solid and snug as they look, but they barely fit in the car. The flat base doesn’t sit flush with the creases in the floorpan, and you’re forced to set the seat and wheel rake adjustment to their furthest extremities to make room for knees and thighs. But once you’re settled it all feels quite sensible and the instruments and switchgear are drawn out close to eye level in long, regimented order. The wheel and pedals are a little offset, without feeling cramped.
On the move the clutch can throw you off. It’s deep and soft, and it’s easy to misjudge the biting point when heading for second. Synchromesh on second gear tends to be short-lived, says Doug, and it’s easy to see why. But when you get it right, you’ll have a huge grin on your face. The ZF’S five tightly-spaced ratios are perfect for attacking tight, twisty roads.
All the torque comes well before the redline so there’s little risk of popping the engine, even though there’s no rev limiter. It’s keen off the mark, lunging out of junctions and delivering a gutsy upsurge of midrange power with a bestial yowl. There’s lots of noise, engine rather than tailpipe – unsubtle but huge fun.
Once you’re rolling, the unassisted steering is perfectly weighted and offers a fairly responsive turn-in, neat at first with an extra little flick of attitude when you lift the throttle. And enthusiastic cornering will certainly make you glad of those bucket seats; the Abarth’s stiffer springs help compensate for the engine’s extra weight, but still allow a fair amount of body roll. Grip and balance don’t need to be pushed to the limits to have fun, though it’s easy to feel egged on to try harder. ‘You can see why my last one got written off by a friend,’ says Doug.
You’re left with an inevitable affection for this bonkers little car. It’s an old-school slayer of automotive greats, a weird marriage of the daft and the practical, and as flawed as it is wonderful. But what of the elephant in the room – the one munching bales of £50 notes?
‘Having done a few Maseratis, I know the levels involved to get a good car,’ says Doug. ‘It got a bit out of hand, but my heart ruled my head. There are so few around, and no really good examples.’ This money-no-object approach isn’t possible for every hot-hatch restoration, but it seems appropriate that it should have happened to one of the rarest and most eccentric of the breed. ‘A good Strada Abarth could be seen as the Eighties equivalent of an Alfa Giulia Sprint of the late Fifties, and no one bats an eyelid about fistfuls of money being thrown at them.’
That’s not to say Doug Blair’s expenditure is about to become a sound financial investment. That was never the point. What he’s done, apart from building himself a wormhole back to 1985, is to nail down the future of one small but exciting piece of motoring heritage, so why not?