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1962 Abarth 2400 Coupé Allemano
Size XL Scorpion
The Fiat-based, Michelotti-styled Abarth 2400 Coupé Allemano was Carlo Abarth’s magnum opus
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WORDS BY GÉRALD GUÉTAT • PHOTOGRAPHY BY HENRI THIBAULT
After hundreds of victories and world records and ten years in business as a performance parts manufacturer and tuning shop for smallcapacity engines, Carlo Abarth tried to satisfy his ambition to be recognized as a full-fledged car manufacturer with his elegant Gran Turismos. The luxurious Abarth 2400 Coupé Allemano was his crowning achievement.
Earlier in life, Karl Abarth had been a motorcycle racer in his native Austria. He then moved to Italy in 1937, at which point he became “Carlo. ” From his debut with Cisitalia (he became its racing manager in 1947), Abarth showed he had the mind of a car builder. The bankruptcy of that influential firm (see “Admiral’s Flagship, ” HCC #211) led him to found Abarth & C. in March 1949; his friend, racing driver Guido Scagliarini, brought family financing. The new company — whose logo was a scorpion, representing Carlo’s astrological sign — also formed a squadra corse (racing team) with excellent results from champions like Tazio Nuvolari, Piero Taruffi, and even Scagliarini who, in 1949, was crowned Italian Champion of the 1000 Sport class at the wheel of the Cisitalia-based Abarth 204 A.
That same year, Carlo Abarth began manufacturing accessories to improve car performance, including free-flowing exhaust systems and intake manifolds. He quickly achieved commercial success and had to expand the small Abarth plant. Abarth began increasing its output of small cars tuned for racing, which
Powering the 2400 was an Abarth-modified, Fiat 2100-based inline-six that sported an improved head with higher compression and triple Weber carburetors.
famously led to collaborations with Alfa Romeo, Simca, and Porsche. However, it was with fellow Turinese firm Fiat that a natural partnership was established.
For a number of years, beginning in the mid 1950s, Abarth cars shined in racing and became regarded as the queens of speed records. The nuova Fiat 500 had launched in 1957 with very modest performance, but one particular example became the unlikely star of a secret marathon in February 1958. Over seven days and nights, its average speed was 108 kph (67 mph), when the top speed of the standard version was only 85 kph (53 mph). Carlo Abarth was behind this successful initiative, and Fiat immediately understood how much its brand could benefit from an association with Abarth. Together they strengthened a younger and sportier image.
At the time, Turin enjoyed a dynamic ecosystem, where numerous renowned car-body builders and talented young designers surrounded the powerful industrial complex founded by the Agnelli family. It was the start of a golden age for Abarth, a decade during which the company created countless high-performance cars of varying displacements. Then, in October 1971, Fiat acquired Abarth and it became the carmaker’s racing division. The Abarth name made occasional appearances on production cars over the years but, in 2007, the brand was relaunched as a Fiat subsidiary at the Geneva Motor Show
So why did this firm, one that had been so successful in tuning and improving small-displacement engines, elect to build large GT cars? For insight, we can look to Carlo’s direct relationships with some of Fiat’s top managers. Renzo Avidano was one of Carlo’s closest collaborators from the time of Cisitalia and the birth of the Abarth company. Avidano, who died in 2018 at the age of 97, left an irreplaceable account of the daily life of Abarth & C., of which he was commercial director and, from 1956, racing director.
In April 1994, Avidano spoke at a symposium about how his friend Carlo Abarth conducted his business in the hope of being acknowledged as a full-fledged car builder. From his insider perspective:
“Carlo’s close relations with Fiat really started after the record of 1958 with the 500. He was already hoping to prove he was not only an engine wizard, but that he had also the stuff of an automobile builder. Abarth won his bet by making the 500 a track star, which allowed him to sign a contract with Fiat rewarding him a bonus for every victory by a small Fiat Abarth from the factory team, or from any customer, wherever and whenever it was in the world. ”
Given the fabulous record of wins for the 595 and 695, it’s understandable that much of Abarth’s income came from the financial windfall paid by Fiat. In addition, thanks to its close ties, Abarth was permitted to buy the 500 and 600 models directly from the factory in a “light” state of completion — taken from the assembly lines early — thus bereft of all items Abarth’s factory deemed useless in building its sports versions.
Abarth was unquestionably favored by Fiat, but the natural equilibrium of forces between a giant manufacturer and a small-volume “craftsman” could only remain unbalanced, often by simple ignorance on the part of Fiat. This shift became more evident from the moment Carlo Abarth wanted to scale up and make his own GTs displacing more than 2.0 liters.
Avidano recalled a key discussion between Abarth and Fiat vice president
Prolific designer Giovanni Michelotti penned the crisp lines of Carlo Abarth’s flagship two-door, but its front and rear treatments represented the contributions of two carrozzerias: the Allemano firm, which built the body, was said to have styled the front, while Ellena’s craftsmen handled the rear.
Gaudenzio Bono in early 1959: “Carlo announced his intention to manufacture a GT based on the new Fiat 2100, with a body designed by Allemano. Bono enthusiastically approved, and so we got the chassis necessary to produce our first coupé, the 2200. ” This model would be styled by Giovanni Michelotti in two versions — coupé and spider— and would be built by Carrozzeria Allemano. It was released in autumn 1959 at the Turin Motor Show.
Abarth’s specific talent for finetuning was demonstrated on the Fiat 2100’s six-cylinder, which came from the drawing board of former Ferrari engineer Aurelio Lampredi; the small company increased its capacity to 2,162-cc and raised output to 120 hp. This same engine powered Fiat’s excellent 2300 sedan upon its mid-1961 launch, with a consequence Abarth had not anticipated, as Avidano explained.
“At the 1961 Turin Auto Show, we discovered the Fiat 2300S coupé with Ghia bodywork, which was selling some 30 percent cheaper than our new 2200 model with bodywork by Ellena, displayed at the same show. We were quite disappointed! Carlo went back to Bono to tell him that this competition was going to kill our production, but the Fiat boss replied he had not thought of that for a single second. ”
Despite a dependency that was sometimes difficult for Carlo Abarth to
accept, his firm was still a major asset for Fiat in terms of brand image and kept doing good business with Agnelli’s company. For example, Abarth manufactured the finned aluminum oil crankcase and various parts of the 2300S gearbox, but also officially managed the record set by this model in Monza (April 1-5, 1963), and was entrusted with improving the performance of the standard 2300S inline-six. In addition, Fiat signed an exclusive contract with Abarth to provide the 200-km (124-mile) road test drive for each factory-new 2300S Ghia. Without knowing it, lucky Fiat 2300S coupé owners were driving a car tested and approved by the drivers of a world-famous racing team.
Despite his successful small-car production, Carlo Abarth had not yet given up his ambitions of recognition as a true car manufacturer. In 1962, he proudly launched his ultimate “big” GT, the Fiat Abarth 2400 Coupé Allemano.
Nothing was overlooked to make this model as elegant, well finished, and efficient as possible. Under the hood, the Turin wizard had increased the capacity of the Fiat inline-six to 2,323.4 cc. This engine wore a revised cylinder head
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with a 9:1 compression ratio and was fed by three two-barrel Weber 40 DCOE carburetors with new manifolds, exhaling through a special exhaust system. As seen here in chassis 001, this delivered a healthy 142 hp @ 5,800 rpm and 144 lb-ft of torque @ 3,500 rpm. In its top (fourth) gear, the car exceeded the 200-kph mark.
Under its Michelotti-penned skin, the 2400 Coupé retained the rear-drive Fiat’s monocoque chassis, with wishbonesupported, torsion-bar-sprung independent front suspension and a leaf-sprung live rear axle, plus front and rear anti-roll bars. Its worm-and-roller steering was manual, but the four-wheel Girling disc brakes behind 15-inch wheels were servo-assisted.
This car’s well-equipped, nicely finished 2+2 interior was worthy of the best GTs of the most prestigious Italian makers of the time. It was in perfect harmony with the elegant aluminum bodywork made by Carrozzeria Allemano, each detail of which was neat and clean. The Abarth 2400 Coupé weighed only 1,075 kg (2,370 lbs), compared to over 1,300 kg (2,866 lbs) for the steel-bodied Fiat 2300S coupé.
Dear to Carlo’s heart and remarkable in many ways, the 2400 Coupé was produced for just two years. Fewer than 10 were built, with variations in bodywork and power. Our feature car was a jewel in the Abarth collection of Swiss racer and semi-official Abarth factory test-driver Engelbert Möll. When new, it was reserved for factory use and testing for visiting customers. This model’s high price largely explained the commercial failure, despite it being widely admired for its technical and aesthetic qualities. For Renzo Avidano, the genesis of the 2400 Coupé summed up the difficulties Carlo Abarth met in satisfying his ambition to produce series models that were as efficient in racing as they were on the road, like Alpine or Porsche: “The large and steady gains cashed in by the 595 and 695 in competition acted as a kind of drug that prompted the firm to concentrate mainly on small engines. Another crucial limitation: Carlo was a master mechanic but had a hard time dealing with the body of the car. We worked with Ellena, Sibona, and Allemano. He couldn’t handle the slightest body flaw, but we were totally dependent on the supplier in this area. ”
In fact, the 2400 Coupé’s look was the result of an arbitration between the two usual bodybuilders of the small firm: Its front was handled by Allemano, while the back originated with Ellena. This was a vicious circle that trapped Abarth’s roadcar production within narrow limits, prohibiting profitability and therefore further investment to allow the development of larger series capable of satisfying Carlo’s quality requirements.
The fact remains that Abarth occupies a unique place in the history of the automobile, having designed high-performance and high-quality cars ranging from 595 to 2,400 cc, the latter illustrated by this Coupé Allemano. In doing so, Carlo succeeded in a way, like a larger manufacturer that would build up a large catalog over time. The 70th anniversary of this special model offers a good opportunity to remember it.
