Abarth Classiche revisits the Alfa 4C - again
New limited-run 1300 OT retreads old ground, looks good doing it
It is perhaps understandable that some people are inclined to not let the Alfa 4C rest in peace. Like more than one lightweight, mid-engined sports car that didn’t quite reach their full potential, there were sufficient sliding door moments in the model’s inception and development to make poking and prodding it in retrospect seem like a good idea. Especially when we live in an age that makes it easy to feel nostalgic about what were happening ten years ago. The Italians can’t build you a new four-cylinder, carbon-tubbed two-seater - but they can show you what an old one with a new body looks like.
Hence the excitement that greeted the Abarth Classiche 1300 OT when it was shown as 1:3 scale model on the weekend. For one thing, it speaks volumes that it's Abarth again dipping its wick in the 4C’s honeypot. Highly engaged PHers will recall that it has been here before with the Abarth 1000 SP it revealed in 2022. That car was intended as an homage to the 1966 1000 SP - although the concept itself had a much longer history, having been on the drawing board in one form or another since 2009 when Alfa and Abarth first mulled the idea of the latter expanding its lineup in a more lively direction.
That came to nothing, and in many ways the Abarth Classiche 1300 OT - which apparently will be built within the heritage division’s “Reloaded by Creators” project, but only to the tune of five examples - isn’t worth a whole hill of beans more. Ostensibly, it’s another tribute, this time to the 1965 Fiat-Abarth OT 1300 race car, and was shown as part of the celebrations surrounding Abarth’s 75th anniversary. But really it’s an excuse to get creative with the 4C’s basic shape again with some rose-tinted, what-might-have-been specs on, this time producing a bespoke coupe that (unsurprisingly) looks pretty good.
Quite what format it takes underneath isn’t revealed in Abarth’s brief description of the scale model, although it’s safe to assume it gets the 1.7-litre four-pot that powered the 4C and therefore reproduces virtually the same level of performance (because this is a design exercise, after all). We don’t know a price either, although that hardly matters insofar as it’s going to be a lot and you’d probably need to be a personal chum of someone at Abarth’s Heritage Hub in Turin to even get a look in. For anyone visiting the city, the 1300 OT can be seen alongside a host of other historical models in a special exhibition that’s open to the public for three months. Or you could enquire at your local dealership about the new Abarth 695 75° Anniversario, which is emphatically the car Abarth intended to be in the spotlight rather than a rear-drive sports car it never got to make. Coulda, shoulda, woulda, eh?
I appreciate Abarth of old but this feels just like a rebody and no doubt an opportunity to charge people a lot of money for a car that underneath is still flawed..
Hopefully it's great to drive otherwise it seems a bit pointless ..
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