What a difference 58 years makes juxtaposition of Fiat-Abarth 1300 OT, 1966 and Abarth Classiche 1300 OT, 2024. Stellantis Heritage have revealed plans (a model and renders) to make a limited edition tribute car that references the successes of the 1300 OT from the mid-60s. The new car is based on the defunct Alfa Romeo 4C and will be built in an edition of 5 units as part of the celebrations of Abarth's 75th anniversary.

Abarth Classiche 1300 OT

The Alfa Romeo 4C may have ended production in 2020, but Stellantis is still launching new cars based on its carbon-fiber chassis.

The latest is the Abarth Classiche 1300 OT, which pays homage to the Fiat Abarth OT 1300 race car of the 1960s.

Abarth 1300OT Periscopica Coupé

In 1958, the American Chrysler Corporation pursued an entry into the European motor manufacturing market by buying 15 per cent of the French Simca company's stock from Ford. At that time, however, the dominant shareholder remained Fiat of Turin, and their influence remained distinctively apparent in the engineering and design of Simca cars for several years into the early 1960s. However, in 1963 Chrysler increased its Simca stake to a controlling 64 per cent by purchasing stock from Fiat, subsequently extending that holding to 77 per cent.

Chrysler had no interest in any continuation of the previously successful Simca Abarth and Abarth Simca high-performance car collaboration, which came to a juddering halt. In Turin Carlo Abarth found himself left more or less high and dry, but the supply of basically Simca 1000 chassis floor pans, upon which the sleek and superfast Abarth Simca 1600s and 2000s had been based, left quite a number in stock, as yet unused. The popular legend is that it was upon these unused Simca platforms that Abarth then founded his 1300cc class Gran Turismo design for 1965 – the OT 1300. Abarth's technical team under Mario Colucci had developed a boxed pressed-steel chassis structure on the modified Simca 1000 floor pan to which allindependent suspension was attached with componentry drawn from the Fiat 850 shelves. The Abarth OT 1300 then emerged, to race for the first time as a prototype in the September, 1965, Nurburgring 500-Kilometre classic.

Driver Klaus Steinmetz hammered the new Coupé home to a fine third-place finish overall and the OT 1300 was up and running into the record books, becoming one of the most successful – and also one of the most distinctive – models that Abarth & C ever produced. The OT 1300's rear-mounted all-Abarth engine was overhung – in best Carlo Abarth-approved style. It was a 4-cylinder unit with twin overhead camshaft cylinder head, using a block with cylinder bore and stroke dimensions of 86mm x 55.5mm to displace 1289cc.

With two valves per cylinder and a 10.5:1 compression ratio, the engine breathed through two twin-choke Weber 45DCOE9 carburettors. Ignition was by two plugs per cylinder, fired by single distributor. Dry-sump lubrication was adopted and the power unit produced a reliable 147bhp at 8,800rpm. This lusty engine, perfected by Abarth's power-unit specialist Luciano Fochi with five main-bearing crankshaft, drove via a five-speed and reverse Abarth transaxle.

Wheelbase length of the OT 1300 was nominally 2015mm, front track 1296mm and rear track 1340mm. It featured moulded glassfibre clamshell-style opening front and rear body sections moulded by Sibona & Basano in Turin, and this pert-nosed Coupé became a familiar sight dominating its class for three consecutive years. Production of the OT 1300 began on May 15 1966 and ended on March 30, 1966, by which time the minimum production number of 50 required by the FIA for homologation as a Gran Turismo model had (allegedly) been achieved. The most distinctive single characteristic of the OT 1300 Coupé, apart from its huge International success within its class, was its adoption of the Periscopica air-cooling intake on the rear of the cabin roof. Casual onlookers would assume that the periscopelike intake fed intake air into the rear-mounted engine, but this is absolutely not the case. Instead, the water and oil-cooling pipe runs through the cockpit area heated-up the cabin to what was generally considered to be an unacceptable level for endurance racing, and the periscope intake merely blasted cold air down into the cabin to cool the driver himself...

From the OT 1300 Mario Colucci developed the OT 2000 Coupé using the 1946cc 4-cylinder power unit perfected by his colleague Luciano Fochi and with some 215bhp at 7,600rpm that largerengined model was capable of exceeding 165mph in a straight line. In fact all these Abarths with their sleek aerodynamic bodies and light weight really were exceedingly rapid by the standards of the time and within their respective capacity classes.

Fiat Abarth 1300/124 OT Coupé 1966-70. 📸 Pierre-Yves Etienney. - source Rétro Passion Automobile.

1967 Fiat Abarth OT 1300 “Periscopio.”

Fiat Abarth OT 1300 / 124 Coupe 

1965 Fiat Abarth OT 1300 撸先生：看片神器，每日更新，高清流畅，无需翻墙，t.cn/EVvnoK4

1965 Fiat Abarth OT 1300 track car via /r/Autos

Abarth 1300 OT (1967.) record de vitesse 260 km/h. - source Fiat Abarth.

1965 Abarth OT 2000 - Periscopio

While the Ferrari GTO was heralded for winning the Division 3 World Touring Car Championship, the Fiat Abarth OT 1300 nearly matched its performance in Division 1. This small car won many important victories for Abarth including the 1966 and 1967 Division 1 World Championships.

Fiat Abarth 1300 OT 1300 Prototypo, 1965. Designed by Mario Colucci and built at Sibona & Basano of Turin, the 1300 OT was the last Abarth to use Simca parts. It had a modified Simca 1000 floor pan, attached to this were new front and rear sections that supported independent suspension and modified Fiat 850 components. The engine was fresh design but was similar to the Simca 1.3-litre Abarth had previously raced. Between May 1965 and March 1966, over 50 examples of the OT 1300s were made to satisfy homologation requirements. It replaced the Abarth Simca 1300 but raced in the prototype class until homologated in May of 1966

Fiat Abarth OT 1300 Periscopio.

Fiat Abarth 1300 OT Periscopio