A member on one of the forums I follow recently bought this, a 1972 Fiat 124 Spider race car/custom. The owner believes it started life as a hard-core race car, but was converted to a street car at some point- the roll cage and race car parts were removed, and the interior from a stock Spider was swapped in. Here’s what the owner has to say about it:
This a 1972 Fiat 124 Spider born race car turned street car.
In the 1970s, an as-yet unnamed dealership in Florida built a few purpose-built racing bodies. I assume SCCA or Trans-Am style racing.
The body is 100% steel. Front body panel, fenders, doors, quarters and rear body panel are all seam welded and smoothed. The cowl is moved back from a 124 about 8-10 inches. The seats are moved back about 8-10 inches. The rear seat is deleted and the head rest shape (what are those things called?) is hand-pounded and wheeled steel with a minor amount of 1.5in angle iron supporting the structure.
The cage was removed and somebody at some time took the racing bits back out and put the street car bits back in there. My best guess is they cannibalized a rusted out 124 street car. The gentleman that I bought it from put a street car ‘interior’ back into with a 1980 spider dash board, console and hand-built carpets and door trim pads.
It’s an odd duck. The ‘burb where I live has a whole contingent and Angry Olds® who complain incessantly about noise and traffic. I am doing my best to contribute to both of those.If you know anything, hit me up. drakkonwd at ‘that google-mail’ .com
Does anyone in the CC commentariot know the history of this car? If you do, shoot the owner an email!
My guess is that it may well not ever have been a race car. Serious racing 124s all had their fenders opened up for bigger tires.
This thing sits up too high too. I suspect this is just someone’s toy car that they decided to get a bit carried away in terms of customizing it. I just can’t see someone going through the huge effort to bring it back so close to stock in a number of key ways, after having been a race car. Of course, anything’s possible, and it may be as you say.
Who says it was a race car? Is there any proof or documentation?
Not sure what racing serious that would qualify for given the radical modifications like de-dooring it. I dig the boat inspired windshield though. Maybe like Paul speculates it was someone’s street car project. Could have done an auto-x or two as well.
Add my vote for the car having been someone’s personal custom rather than than an actual racer. A little googling turns up the fact that FIAT built a 124 Spider homologation special in 1972 intended for rallying and sold at least 500 of them. These cars were seriously and specifically modified for racing. One of them would have been both faster and easier to certify to the SCCA. It would have made much more sense to buy one of these from the factory than to build one’scone car.
Here’s a blatantly stolen quote from Wikipedia
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_124_Sport_Spider
The Fiat Abarth 124 Rally is a sport version of the 124 Spider, introduced in November 1972. Its main purpose was to receive FIA homologation in the special grand touring cars (group 4) racing class, and replace the 1.6-litre Fiat Sport Spider rally cars which were presently being campaigned. At the time 124 had already won the 1972 European Rally Championship at the hands of Raffaele Pinto and Gino Macaluso. The 124 Rally was added to the Sport Spider range, which included the 1600 and 1800 models; the first 500 examples produced were earmarked for the domestic Italian market.
Amongst the most notable modifications over the standard spider there were independent rear suspension, engine upgrades, lightweight body panels, and a fixed hard top. In place of the usual rear solid axle, there is a Chapman-type McPherson strut independent suspension, supplemented by a longitudinal torque arm. At the front a radius rod on each side was added to the standard double wishbones. The Abarth-tuned type 132 AC 4.000 1.8-litre, twin-cam engine was brought from the standard 118 to 128 PS DIN (94 kW; 126 hp)[10] by replacing the standard twin-choke carburettor with double vertical twin-choke Weber 44 IDFs, and by fitting an Abarth exhaust with a dual exit muffler.[8][9] The 9.8:1 compression ratio was left unchanged.[9] The transmission is the all-synchronised five-speed optional on the other Sport Spider models, and brakes are discs on all four corners. Despite the 20 kg (44 lb) four-point roll bar fitted, kerb weight is 938 kg (2,068 lb), roughly 25 kg (55 lb) less than the regular 1.8-litre Sport Spider.[8]
Engine bonnet, boot lid and the fixed hard top are fibreglass, painted matt black, the rear window is perspex and the doors aluminium. Front and rear bumpers were deleted and replaced by simple rubber bumperettes. A single matte black wing mirror was fitted. Matte black wheel arch extensions house 185/70 VR 13 Pirelli CN 36 tyres on 5.5 J × 13″ four-spoke alloy wheels.[8] Inside centre console, rear occasional seats, and glovebox lid were eliminated; while new features were anodised aluminium dashboard trim, a small three-spoke leather-covered Abarth steering wheel, and Recaro corduroy-and-leather bucket seats as an extra-cost option.[8] The car carries Fiat badging front and rear, Abarth badges and “Fiat Abarth” scripts on the front wings, and Abarth wheel centre caps. Only three paint colours were available: Corsa red, white, and light blue.
Most interesting part of this is that the cowl and seats were moved back 8-10″. Doesn’t really bring us any closer to solving this puzzle, but those changes may have been made for better weight distribution.
Cars looking like this ran at SCCA races and they were not all Abarths, so anything is possible.
T.Turtle;
I suspect you remembering an Elva or something similar. Although there are many variations, those cars featured the long hood, low wind shield, aero driver’s head fairing
http://www.race-cars.com/carsold/elva/59-mk5/59-mk5pa.htm
I would still tend to believe that this is a 124 done, “in the style of” an Elva et al. For one thing, the aero fairing behind the driver’s head was pretty much a thing of the past for racers by 1972.
Note that none of means for certain that this car wasn’t raced…. I’m just speculating.
Nope – SCCA (and other sanctioning bodies) had classes for cars like this in the 70s, like the one below (from http://www.kentcomputer.com/racing_memoirs.htm).
I followed SCCA club racing pretty obsessively from about 1970 through the early ’80’s, spectating at many regional and national races on the West Coast, and participating as a Showroom Stock racer for several years. I don’t recall anything like this. The body mods would not have been legal for “Production” racing (I believe the 124 Spider was classified in F Production) and the base car would not have been competitive for Sports Racing classes. I could be wrong, but I think this is a custom, not a racer.