What if the 131 Sport had not been made..?

[kev131]

I'm making my way slowly through the excellent Graham Robson book on the 131 Abarth from the Rally Giants series.

Every page is meat and drink to a 131 fan but the most amazing piece of information come across so far (to me at least) is as follows:

Blind Alleys

"Although the 131 Abarth was a front line works rally car for 6 eventful years, from time to time Abarth thought about replacing it, or producing different versions of the same car, but in all cases the finance and marketing staff inside Fiat stopped the projects. The two most important were:

Proposed Group 1 car - Jealous of the success of Ford's Escort RS2000 and of the Opel Kadett GT/E, both of which won hundreds of awards in the group 1 "Showroom category", Abarth proposed its own particular type. To gain group 1 status, 5000 would have to be built on the mainstream assembly lines at the Mirafiori plant. Two prototypes were constructed, a steel bodied 131 Abarth lookalike (complete with wheel arch extensions) with the existing mass production 8 valve twin cam engine (as used in several Fiats and Lancias of the period) and the 131 Abarth type independant rear suspension. It was a promising project, but was killed off when top management decided that it would have been too expensive."

If this car had been built I wonder if the 131 Sport/Racing would have been created. And what a fantastic idea - If they had made and kept them till now what would they be worth..?

[Tas131]

How many 131 Sport/Racing cars were built? They were imported into NZ as far as I know, but they never made it to OZ! After the 4 door 131 we got the regatta and the Lancia beta. A production 131 with IRS would have been a nice addition to the Fiat stable.

[131DHOC]

I'm making my way slowly through the excellent Graham Robson book on the 131 Abarth from the Rally Giants series.

Every page is meat and drink to a 131 fan but the most amazing piece of information come across so far (to me at least) is as follows:

Blind Alleys

"Although the 131 Abarth was a front line works rally car for 6 eventful years, from time to time Abarth thought about replacing it, or producing different versions of the same car, but in all cases the finance and marketing staff inside Fiat stopped the projects. The two most important were:

Proposed Group 1 car - Jealous of the success of Ford's Escort RS2000 and of the Opel Kadett GT/E, both of which won hundreds of awards in the group 1 "Showroom category", Abarth proposed its own particular type. To gain group 1 status, 5000 would have to be built on the mainstream assembly lines at the Mirafiori plant. Two prototypes were constructed, a steel bodied 131 Abarth lookalike (complete with wheel arch extensions) with the existing mass production 8 valve twin cam engine (as used in several Fiats and Lancias of the period) and the 131 Abarth type independant rear suspension. It was a promising project, but was killed off when top management decided that it would have been too expensive."

If this car had been built I wonder if the 131 Sport/Racing would have been created. And what a fantastic idea - If they had made and kept them till now what would they be worth..?

So there was a prototype with abarth style body but steel bodywork and 8 valve engine? Have you any photo of it?

[mclements131]

meet and drink  sory

[Gremlino]

Aha,
Remember this thread.....http://131mirafiori.com/smf/index.php?topic=1152.msg6925#msg6925

It seems that thanks to the 131 book we have an explanation as to what the grey mule really was,

now can anyone find any more pics?