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| Supermini: The Autobianchi A112 Abarth |
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| Written by Aaron Severson |
| Sunday, 15 March 2009 00:00 |
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Many of our articles are inspired by the cars we spot in and around Los Angeles. Your author has encountered cars as diverse as a Bugatti Veyron, a Jaguar XJ12C, and a Fiat Multipla -- not at car shows or museums, but parked on the street or driving in traffic. Every so often, we run across something exotic enough that even we can't immediately identify it -- something like this. We must admit that we didn't immediately recognize this little car, and it took some research to determine exactly what it was. Our first thought was that it was a Fiat of some kind, which was almost correct. In fact, it is a 1972 Autobianchi A112 Abarth 58HP, a mouthful of a moniker that bears some explanation.
 The A112 is a little bigger than a Mini, but not by much: 127.6 inches (3,240 mm) long on an 80.3-inch (2,040-mm) wheelbase, tipping the scales at a little over1,500 pounds (690 kg). It has disc/drum brakes, with unequal-length A-arms and coil springs up front, a dead axle on a transverse leaf spring in the rear. Its specification is rustic, but it works. BIANCHI AND AUTOBIANCHIIf you have any interest in bicycles, you may recognize the name Bianchi, an Italian manufacturer of high-end racing bikes. Bianchi was founded in Milan in 1885, and holds the distinction of having offered the first bicycle in the world with pneumatic tires, back in 1888. What you may not know is that the following year, founder Edoardo Bianchi produced his first automobile, which went on sale in 1900. During the first world war, Bianchi produced military vehicles for the Italian army, returning to passenger-car production in 1919. Bianchi's cars were of high quality, but conventional design, and they were never produced in large numbers.
Like many automakers of the Axis nations, the Bianchi works were targets of Allied bombing during World War Two, leading to the near-total destruction of the company's factory in 1943. By 1946, Bianchi had returned to production, but its passenger-car lines were dropped, the company focusing instead on bicycles and commercial vehicles. In 1955, industrialist Fernacio Quintavalle arranged a joint venture between Bianchi, Fiat, and the tire manufacturer Pirelli. The JV, dubbed Autobianchi SpA, produced upscale versions of Fiat cars, beginning with the 1957 Bianchina, which was based on the contemporary Fiat 500. Edoardo Bianchi's son, Giuseppe Bianchi, sold the family's interest in the joint venture to Fiat in 1958. In 1963, Autobianchi became a wholly owned subsidiary of Fiat. Autobianchi's role in the Fiat lineup was akin to Honda's North American Acura division: a somewhat more expensive, more upscale brand, often used to try out new technologies before introducing them to the mainstream brand. For example, the Autobianchi Primula, which bowed in 1964, actually introduced the groundbreaking transverse-engine/front-wheel-drive layout used by the 1969 Fiat 128.  The three-door hatchback layout was still a novelty in the late sixties and early seventies, but by the time Volkswagen's rival Golf debuted in 1975, it became de rigueur for subcompact cars. The A112 was available only in three-door form, but the Fiat 127 that shared its platform and body shell was also offered as a two- or four-door sedan. Fiat advertising claimed the 127 and A112 made 80% of the body available for passenger and cargo space. REFINING THE FWD CONCEPTA few years earlier, the BMC Mini had demonstrated the packaging advantages of a transverse engine and front-wheel drive. By consolidating the entire drivetrain into a single, compact unit, the rest of the body's volume is available for passenger space. The problem with that layout, however, was what to do with the transmission. Alec Issigonis, designer of the Mini, opted to mount the transaxle in the engine sump, sharing its oil supply. This was compact, but problematic; engines and transmissions have very different oiling requirements, and requiring them to share lubrication results in compromises that are satisfactory for neither.
Fiat engineers wanted the space advantages of a FWD layout, so they opted to offset the transversely mounted engine, with the transaxle mounted next to it, driving the front wheels through unequal-length halfshafts. The result was nearly as compact as the Mini's configuration, with few of its drawbacks. (The Fiat layout does have its limitations, including poor access for repair and maintenance. Unequal-length halfshafts also tend to exacerbate torque steer, although with well under 100 horsepower, the latter was not a great problem for most small FWD cars.) The Autobianchi A112, introduced in 1969, applied the technology of the Primula/128 on a smaller scale, becoming the forerunner of the modern "supermini" class. Despite its tiny dimensions, it had an impressive amount of interior room. With its three-door hatchback body, it was versatile, as well. Despite its fairly rudimentary suspension, the A112 was also a nimble little car. A sports car it was not -- the largest standard engine was an OHV four of 903 cc (55 cu. in.) displacement, making 44 horsepower (32 kW) -- but with a curb weight of only 1,500 pounds (685 kg), it had adequate performance, and returned excellent fuel economy. Just as the Mini's agility had made it a favorite of rally drivers, spawning the Mini Cooper and Mini Cooper S performance derivatives, the A112 soon got its own performance model: the A112 Abarth. ABARTHAbarth & C. was an early example of what today we would call a tuner. Its Austrian founder, former motorcycle racer Karl Abarth, fled Austria at the start of World War Two, and subsequently settled in Italy. He eventually became an Italian citizen, changing his first name to Carlo. In 1946, he joined Piero Dusio's new Turin-based race builder/automaker Cisitalia, whose 202 coupe helped make the career of Batista "Pinin" Farina. Three years later, after Dusio sold his interest in Cisitalia to Armando Scagliarini, Abarth became a partner in the firm, which changed its name to Abarth & C. The company's new logo was a distinctive scorpion emblem, derived from Abarth's astrological sign.
Abarth & C.'s primary focus was racing; Scagliarini's son Guido won two national championships in 1949, behind the wheel of the first Abarth cars. Their bread and butter, however, soon became high-performance mufflers and other speed equipment for street cars. By 1962, Abarth was selling more than a quarter million mufflers a year. Along the way, Abarth built relationships with other manufacturers in the Turin area, including Lancia, Fiat, Zagato, Boano, and Pininfarina. Abarth & C. offered highly tuned competition versions of a wide range of cars, from the Simca 1300 to the Porsche 356B. The majority of Abarth's cars were Fiats -- natural enough, given that Fiat was Italy's largest automaker. By 1967, Abarth had offered more than a dozen Fiat-based models. It should be no surprise, therefore, that Abarth also turned his attention to the A112. His company built their first prototypes of a hopped-up A112 only a few months after the car's launch in 1969, discovering that they could achieve over 100 hp in racing tune. By 1970, Abarth's reputation was strong -- his team had won over 10,000 races -- but the tuning business was fiercely competitive, and his company was losing money. In 1971, he sold Abarth & C. to Fiat. He remained as CEO for a short time, but he eventually retired to his native Vienna, and died in October 1979. After 1971, Abarth effectively became Fiat's performance division. THE A112 ABARTHOne of Abarth's first post-buyout models was the A112. Unlike the early racing prototypes, the production A112 Abarth used a 982 cc engine, fitted with twin carburetors, a hotter camshaft, and, of course, an Abarth exhaust system. It was rated at 58 horsepower (43 kW) -- the same as the contemporary Ford Cortina 1300, which weighed around 500 pounds (227 kg) more. 0-60 mph (0-97 kph) took a little under 12 seconds, with a top speed of 94 mph (150 kph). Although not outstanding by today's standards, this was fine performance for a small European car of its era. Competition A112s would be popular rally cars throughout the seventies, even leading to the creation of a one-marque racing series.
In 1975, the Abarth received a bigger, 1,049 cc (64 cu. in.) engine with 70 horsepower (51 kW), as well as a five-speed gearbox. It was renamed Abarth 70, although the Abarth 58 model was still available through 1976. The five-speed Abarth 70 was capable of 0-60mph (0-97 kph) in around 11 seconds, with a top speed of around 100 mph (160 kph).  Ground effects and spoiler border on the ludicrous for a car with a top speed under 100 mph (161 kph), but it helped to distinguish the Abarth from the mundane A112, which was of prime importance to Fiat. Why this car has fog lamps on the rear, but not the front is a more puzzling question, for which we have no answer. In 1969, Fiat had acquired Lancia, and it eventually consolidated Autobianchi as part of the Lancia organization. By the late seventies, Fiat had dropped the Autobianchi brand in many export markets, badging the A112 as a Lancia instead. Nonetheless, the A112 remained popular, offered in six successive versions through the mid-eighties. In all, more than 1.2 million A112s were sold by the time it went out of production in 1986. The Autobianchi brand survived in Italy and France until 1995, and was finally dropped when the last Autobianchi model, the Fiat Panda-base Y10, was replaced by the Lancia Ypsilon. Fiat eventually sold the rights to the Autobianchi name to Registro Autobianchi, the official Autobianchi club. Abarth languished after Fiat's withdrawal from racing in the mid-1980s, but in 2007, CEO Sergio Marchionne announced his intention to restore Abarth to its role as Fiat's performance arm, establishing new, dedicated offices in Turin. Its first products were the Grande Punto Abarth and dealer-installed Abarth SS, offering up to 180 hp (132 kW) from Fiat's turbocharged 1.4 L (86 cu. in.) engine. It was joined this past fall by an Abarth version of the new Fiat 500 supermini. To the best of our knowledge, Autobianchi was never officially imported to the U.S., and the A112 would never have met increasingly stringent federal standards. The owner indicated that it is one of only three of its kind in the States -- a rare and remarkable little car. # # #
NOTES ON SOURCESThe primary source for the history of Autobianchi and the A112 were their Wikipedia pages (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobianchi and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobianchi_A112, accessed 11 October 2008), along with the Sporting Fiats Club's A112 Abarth page (date and author unknown, http://www.sportingfiatsclub.com/models/A112%20Abarth/A112Abarth_000.asp, accessed 30 December 2008). Background on Carlo Abarth came from the Sporting Fiats Club's bio (date and author unknown, http://www.sportingfiatsclub.com/models/124/CarloAbarth.asp, accessed 30 December 2008) and "A Long and Successful History Lies Behind the Revived Abarth Name" (author unknown, 26 February 2007, Italiaspeed.com, http://www.italiaspeed.com/2007/motor_shows/geneva/preview/abarth/history.html, accessed 31 December 2008). Information on the revival of Fiat came in part from Mark Wan, "Grande Punto Abarth" (10 October 2007, AutoZine.org, http://www.autozine.org/html/Fiat/Punto.html, accessed 28 December 2008).
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After finding an old Polistil diecast A112 model some months ago, I was a bit curious about the cars. Wikipedia is well and good, but I think you did it better :)