Little Mouse

Little Mouse, a photo by William 74 on Flickr.

Launched in 1937, Fiat's original 500, the "Topolino" (Italian for "Little Mouse") was just about the smallest car you could build and still call a car. Powered by a sub-600cc four pot motor, the Topo put Italy on wheels, and remained in production in one form or another until the 50's. This is the classic earlier "Type A" style, which despite it's diminutive size was still an elegantly styled car. Well, until you chopped the body off and put it on an altered wheelbase drag chassis with a big V-8 sticking out the top.

That's one thing they don't talk about in the Fiat history books-the Topolino's racing history here in the States. Along with old American Bantam roadsters and English Ford Anglias, the Topo was a popular Altered and Gas class drag racer, due entirely to it's tiny size, which combined a low weight with a small frontal area to make a nice racing platform. Though plenty of genuine cars were chopped up, many of the Toplino Altereds were made with fiberglass replica bodies, like this mid sixties example.

Fun fact-you can still buy 'glass Topolino bodies today.

Abarth

Abarth, a photo by William 74 on Flickr.

Formed in 1949, Abarth is best known for it's hot Fiat 500-based racing cars. However, the company also ran a racing team featuring Porsche, Ferrari, and Simca automobiles along with their own products. Aside from racing cars the company also produced performance exhausts for a number of manufacturers, and eventually grew to dominate the Italian tuning parts market.

Abarth was sold to Fiat in 1971, and became the racing department for the company. Many cars built by Fiat's different brands, such as Lancia and Autobianchi, were co-branded as Abarths, and the company also built and ran Fiat's rally team.

Gradually, the Abarth name devolved to a sporty trim level on Fiats, and was all but forgotten until recently. Fiat has since relaunched the name, most notably with the hot Fiat 500 Abarth, of which this is one.