100 | GOODWOOD REVIVAL SALE
(^218) *
1978 Fiat abarth rallye 131 supeRMiRafioRe
groUP 4 SPeCiFiCatioN worlD ChamPioNShiP rally SalooN
Not registered in the UK
(previously registered in Italy: TO R92450)
Chassis no. 2045727
Fiat acquired Abarth & C in 1971 with the legendary former
Ferrari Chief Engineer Aurelio Lampredi becoming sole managing
director. Into 1979-1980 the Abarth headquarters at Corso March
38, Turin, accommodated some 350 staff within a factory facility
which ran to 11,000 square metres. The company was active in
three major areas, making the engines for the Autobianchi 70hp,
producing exhaust systems for Fiats cars together with other
accessories, and it also served as the ‘racing department’ for
both Fiat and Lancia. It was from the Abarth division experimental
department that all the Fiat Abarth 131 rally cars, and the
sophisticated Lancia Stratos team cars all emerged.
The Fiat Abarth Rallye 131 achieved legendary success by
winning the World Rally Championship no fewer than three
consecutive times: in 1977, 1978, and in 1980 with drivers
Markku Alen, Timo Salonen and Walter Röhrl, among many
others, at the wheel. Between 1976 and 1981 the Fiat Abarth
131s won 18 World Rally Championship-qualifying rounds. In
works Fiat Abarth 131s, Markku Alen won the Finnish Thousand
Lakes Rally no fewer than four times, and the Portuguese Rally
three times, while Walter Rohrl won the Greek Acropolis Rally, the
Quebec Criterium Molson, the Monte Carlo, Portugal, Codasur
and San Remo Rallies.
Fulvio Bacchelli won the South Pacific Rally in a Fiat Abarth 131,
Timo Salonen added a Criterium Molson du Quebec, Jean-
Claude Andruet another San Remo Rally, Bernard Darniche two
editions of the Tour de Corse, Antonio Zanini the Rajd Polski, and
that supremely-talented lady driver Michele Mouton the 1978 Tour
de France Automobile. The basic Fiat 131 Mirafiori was launched
as a small-to-medium family saloon produced from 1974 to 1984.
It had been launched at the 1974 Turin Salone dell’Automobile
exhibition and was the replacement for the successful Fiat 124.
It was also available as a two-door and four-door saloon or a
five-door estate. The 131 was given the Mirafiori name after the
Turin suburb in which the cars were produced. Naming the model
in this way marked a break with the former Fiat convention,
established in the 1960s, of naming their mainstream models only
with a three-digit number, and this practice set the pattern for Fiat
to name its car models thereafter.
Initially, the 131 was offered with 1.3-litre and 1.6-litre overhead-
valve 4-cylinder power units. When new twin-overhead camshaft
heads were introduced in 1978 the relevant model became
known as the 131 Supermirafiore and in June 1981 a new
sport version, the Volumetrico Abarth, was introduced to some
markets, with a supercharged version of the by that time familiar
2-litre twin-cam engine.