While the Abarth Works Museum is awaiting the construction of its modern-style new building, the organisers use the warehouses for temporary exhibitions.
Last year, the Museum organised a fascinating exhibition on the collaboration between the French Simca and the sporty Italian brand.
The warehouse also hosted some of the cherished pieces of the owner, and we spotted quite a few exciting specimens beyond the ones we had already seen during our earlier visits. The art deco car in the front is a Simca-Fiat 11 CV, manufactured under a Fiat license by the French manufacturer SAFAF (the French subsidiary of Fiat) from 1934.
The hall also hosted two interesting Ladas, one of which is a Samara Cabrio. You heard that right. In the mid-1980s, Lada developed a four-seater convertible car based on the Samara 1300/1500 models. With the sexy Lada Natasha Cabriolet nameplate, the car was built in Germany and Belgium, targeting Western European countries with hard currency.
The other Lade one-off is even more exceptional. The Lada Cipher is the product of Professor Tony Stevens, designer of the Hillman Hunter and Sunbeam Rapier, who set up a company to produce low-volume special cars.
The Cipher was unveiled at the 1980 Birmingham International Motor Show. The concept was met with enthusiastic reviews but Professor Stevens could not secure funding for the project. This car was built in 1990 using the front-wheel drive technical platform of the Lada Samara.
The hall featured some 30 cars to showcase the Italian-French affair between Fiat, Simca, Gordini and Abarth. The exhibition revealed a fascinating story, but we will only discuss some of our favourite cars in this article.
The blue 1937 Simca 5 Le Mans Gordini Sport is a Topolino on steroids. This blue race car was built in 1937 by Gordini for Le Mans. It is based on the Simca 5, the French-licenced Fiat Topolino. With its cylinder capacity of just 569 cc, it was the car with the smallest engine ever taking part in the legendary race.
The car proved to be a moving obstacle of the race: while the average speed of the winners in the general class was just over 92 km/h, the Simca 5 Gordini Le Mans was clocked at 85 km/h. Nevertheless, among his peers, the car scored well: it won its class in 1937, 1938 and 1939.
Another favourite was the duo of the silver 1938 Simca 8 Gordino Deho and the red 1937 Simca Fiat Barchetta Sport. The Silver car was developed by Roger Deho, who built lightweight race cars based on Simca chassis. His engine modifications made the Deho cars serious contenders.
The red Barchetta is based on the French version of the Fiat 1100. It is equipped with a 1039 cc engine with two single carburettors and weighs only 400 kg. Mr Moerenhout actively participates in classic car races with this car.
The trio of postwar coupes was also quite a treat, especially with the red leather interior. We also loved the 1952 Ford Simca Comet with a whopping 4.2 V8, and the blue 1952 Simca 9 Sport, that succeeded the Simca 8, with a thorough redesign and new technical platform (brought by the new Aronde model).
We have reached the end of the exhibition, but that does not mean the end of Abarth reports for this year. We will bring you our favourite Abarth specimens from Autoworld’s Abarth exhibition in the coming weeks.
