FIAT 131 ABARTH RALLY GR.4

Description

The Fiat 131 Abarth Rally was the queen of rallying in the late 1970s, following the Lancia Stratos and preceding the legendary triumvirate of the Lancia Delta, Audi quattro and Peugeot T16. It was born in an era when Gianni Agnelli could afford to tell Cesare Fiorio that Fiat had to win a world championship – a concept that in 2020 is impossible even to imagine. Yet that is how it was: in Turin, they were looking for a successor to the 124 Abarth. Initially, the project involved building a new model based on the X1/9 – essentially a Fiat version of the Stratos – but this car never saw the light of day, before Fiat decided instead to make the 131, a family saloon, the star of the show, thereby boosting its market appeal