CarBrandLogos archive · Abarth · 2016

AbarthAbarth 124 Spider

An Italian answer to the Miata, assembled in Hiroshima.

Photo: Charles01 · CC BY-SA 4.0

The story

A defining chapter in Abarth history.

Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the Abarth 124 Spider, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.

Origins

Badge engineering rarely produces anything worth driving. This was the exception. Fiat and Mazda agreed to share the fourth-generation MX-5, and the cars that resulted were built side by side at Mazda's Hiroshima plant on the same front-mid-engine, rear-drive platform, with different sheet metal and different engines.

Geneva Motor Show 1219 · Norbert Aepli, Switzerland (User:Noebu) · CC BY 4.0

Design and engineering

Where Mazda used naturally aspirated fours, the Italian car took a turbocharged 1.4 MultiAir, which gave it a fatter mid-range and a distinctly different character on the road. The Abarth version added a Record Monza exhaust, Bilstein dampers, a mechanical limited-slip differential and a matte black bonnet, with a choice of six-speed manual or Aisin automatic. Styling came from Centro Stile Fiat under Alberto Dilillo, with Ruben Wainberg handling the Abarth, and the surfaces nodded at the original Pininfarina 124 Spider of 1966.

Abarth 124 Spider · El monty · CC BY-SA 4.0

In production

It lasted only from 2016 to 2019, with 41,321 built, and never sold in the numbers Mazda enjoyed with its own version. Listed as the successor to the Barchetta, it remains the closest thing to a modern Fiat sports car.

2016 Fiat 124 Spider Lusso+ 1.4 Rear · Vauxford · CC BY-SA 4.0

At a glance