Abarth Chassis

C and D Sports Racer

Introduction

"Abarth is best known for its successes in the production classes. However, using the 750 Bialbero (twin-cam)) coupe with a single crown in the roof, the team ran H-Mod at all 1959 events except Riverside. In spite of the little Fiat 600 seven inch drums and weighing 600 more pounds than the OSCA, the Abarth rarely finished lower than third.

'The brakes cost us the championship,  'Ray Cuomo recalls. 'The twin-cam was much faster than the pushrods and had double the horsepower. The brakes got so hot the rubber in the wheel cylinders melted. After Elkhart Lake, there wasn’t a drop of fluid in the master cylinder!' Cuomo even tried opening the door to slow the car but that didn’t work either.

Other well known Abarth H-Mods included:

Fiat-Abarth CSR

Ray Cuomo of Brewster, NY, placed second in CSR at the 1968 American Road Race of Champions (the SCCA's national championship at the time) in a Fiat-Abarth.

The November 19-24 race was held at Riverside Raceway, CA. The 18 lap race covered 46.8 miles in 30 minutes, 35.5 seconds for an average speed of 92.2 MPH.

Abarth Special DSR

Fred Plotkin of Los Angeles, CA, won DSR at the 1968 American Road Race of Champions (the SCCA's national championship at the time) in a Abarth Special.

The DSR race was run combined with the CSR race. Fred finished 85.4 seconds behind the CSR winning Lotus 23, averaging 88.0 MPH.

Scuderia Topolino
web site
with Fiat Abarth 1000TC
& 850TC information