300HP Abarth 124 spider Group R-GT – Video
While the first units of the new Abarth 124 spider will become available at European dealerships in the next few days, the tests of the Abarth 124 Rally, the car that will be marking brand’s comeback to this gruelling and exciting form of motor sport, continue at a fast pace. The car is competitive and perfect for the needs of private teams and drivers. After having endured mile after mile of test drives on the Balocco Proving Grounds, Abarth 124 Rally tackled a special course in the hills near Sanremo. On the roads where world-famous rallies have been staged for years, teams enjoyed a preview of the technical features of the car demonstrated by the test drivers who are developing it for the next racing season.
Abarth 124 Rally is classified in Group R-GT and will consequently be able to compete in all international races and most national ones. Abarth is organising a promotional trophy based on participation in seven rounds of the Italian Rally Championship and an international challenge, the calendar of which will be established by picking the most significant events of the national calendars.
Once again, with this car Abarth is kicking off a programme targeted to customers and is preparing an array of activities to promote the drivers and teams that will choose the 124 Rally for racing. In particular, in addition to a race and final jackpot for drivers and teams, activities will include a hospitality area and technical support provided by Abarth during the race with direct sales of spare parts. In the best Abarth tradition, particular attention will be devoted to young drivers and a special ranking will be dedicated only to them. The best under-23 driver will attend an ACI Sport Federal Super Driving Course and compete in the Montecarlo Rally the following year with an official 124 Rally. The prize is invaluable in terms of experience and prestige considering the level of the drivers competing in the opening event of the Rally World Championship.
Teams racing with Abarth know that they can rely on a competitive car that spectacular, easy to manage and guaranteed by a brand that built so many winning models of the past, like the Fiat 124 Abarth Rally (1975 European Champion), the 131 Abarth Rally (three times World Champion in 1977, 1978 and 1980) and the famous Lancia cars tuned by Abarth of the long winning streak.
The new Abarth 124 Rally is an adulterated concentrate of technology and performance, the result of the experience of the Abarth Racing Team to bring the brand with the scorpion badge back onto the most glorious and challenging rally courses, from special stages where the asphalt is hotter to those made treacherous by the slippery ice.
More than forty years after its last official race – the 1976 Monte Carlo Rally – Abarth 124 Rally is back with the same philosophy: to test the technical solutions of street-legal cars under extreme conditions and to guarantee excellent performance and maximum reliability to all Abarth customers.
It is dedicated to everyone who shares the brand’s sense of challenge and racing world values.
Besides top performance during competitions, the goal of a race car is also to ensure a high equivalent value for motor sports customers. For this reason, for the first time, an innovative project target setting method adopted integrating the needs of drivers, co-drivers, mechanics and teams to develop new technical solutions capable of ensuring top competitive results from all points of view.
Concealed beneath the bonnet is the 1800 cm3 turbocharged direct injection dual overhead camshaft engine. By exploiting different selectable mappings, it can output power up to 300 HP at 6500 rpm and optimum torque curve, a key element to allow the driver steering and acceleration balance when oversteering. Performance is breathtaking, acceleration is scorching and enhanced by a full, satisfying sound. The project was developed to ensure reliability and performance also in the extreme conditions typical of rallies: ice, dirt, dust, water, heat.
Even the transmission was designed to enhance performance: the engine is coupled to a rapid six-speed sequential gearbox with shift paddles and traction is assured by the mechanical self-locking differential.
Motor sports, for Abarth, is not only all about thrills. Races are also testing grounds to experiment with solutions that guarantee performance and excitement. The Abarth Racing Team mechanics set precise objectives to enhance the competitiveness of 124 Rally: first of all, weight reduction and overall balance. For this reason, the motor is mounted behind the front axle; for the cockpit and the engine compartment, light, resistant materials were used, while the soft top was replaced by a fixed carbon fibre hard top. With these features, weight distribution leans slightly towards the rear axle in order to ensure maximum traction even in low grip conditions. The centre of gravity was further lowered compared to the street-legal version to the advantage of road grip and straightforward performance.
The new Abarth 124 Spider was born light and agile, and the Rally edition was further refined to star in competitions. Classification in Group FIA R-GT required structural reinforcements to guarantee even greater stress resistance and the highest safety standards for the crew, and the body now has a safety roll cage, which also has the task of increasing torsional stiffness and strengthening the attachment points of the top mounts.
The whole design is focused on the search for maximum efficiency and ergonomics, ensuring the crew not only excellent performance, but also attention to every minute detail, such as the arrangement of interior controls and available space in the cockpit.
Rallies subject the cars to extreme stresses, and that is why the excellent mechanical layout of the production car has been developed further. The suspension system – front high double wishbone and rear multilink – provide optimised kinematics and are now installed on special subframes that ensure, at the same time, higher mechanical resistance and considerable reduction in weight, while metal joints guarantee top driving accuracy.
To ensure maximum grip in all road conditions and adapt to the different special stages, the Racing Team mechanics were extremely careful in defining the suspension set-up possibilities, which offer a broad adjustment of the characteristic angles, a greater bump position for difficult surfaces and, above all, hydraulic four-way shock absorbers to be able to configure compression and rebound behaviour as well as response to the high or low frequencies extremely accurately to indulge the driver’s feeling.
The first-class mechanics has called for a new generation electronic system both to ensure top performance on the road and to optimise weight and overall dimensions.
With a high level of integration, all the main controls are ergonomically grouped on the steering wheel. In this way the driver can, for example, choose the different calibrations of the engine or select the traction control mode, from the one designed for fast, high-grip routes to that designed to support driving in low grip conditions.
The secondary controls are instead concentrated in the console area to be enabled also by the co-driver in critical conditions or during transfers.
Perfectly interpreting Carlo Abarth’s legacy, the Racing Team mechanics also focused on car serviceability and containing the cost per kilometre to foster the promotion of new talents and allow gentlemen drivers to access the world of rallies. A modern rally car must be designed to secure top performance, but also to make sure drivers, co-drivers and mechanics can rely on a machine that can meet their expectations and adapt to multiple uses and situations. This is the reason why the new Abarth 124 Rally will offer the possibility to choose different configurations and set-ups, spanning from the profoundly mechanical, such as ground clearance, to exterior liveries, to be reminiscent of the unforgettable triumphs of the Abarth brand in rallies the world over.
Finally, the SE139 code of the project is rooted in the pulsing heart of the brand’s history, referring directly to Karl Abarth. The abbreviation SE means “Sports” and “Experimental”, a direct connection with Abarth’s values of craftsmanship and technical progress. The progressive number 139, on the other hand, reminds us that in its 67-year history, Abarth has developed an average of two racing projects per year: an outstanding achievement that few other automotive manufacturers can boast.