The best birthday presents are the ones
people gift themselves and that seems to be the case with Abarth’s latest
present for its 70th anniversary. To mark the milestone, the
FCA-owned company built a special edition model suggestively called Abarth 695
70° Anniversario. 1,949 units of this limited run model will be made as a
tribute to the year the company was founded by Carlo Abarth.
Presented in Milan at the 2019 Abarth Days, the
largest gathering of fans of the Scorpion in Europe, the Abarth 695 70°
Anniversario packs plenty of goodies. For example, it debuts the new “Spoiler
ad Assetto Variabile” that was tested in the FCA wind tunnel in Turin. This
manually adjustable roof spoiler is said to improve the grip and stability of
the vehicle at high speeds, especially on fast mixed grip courses.
The spoiler can be adjusted to 12 positions with an
inclination from 0 to 60 degrees. In the maximum inclination position of 60
degrees, it increases the aerodynamic load by up to 42 kg at a speed
of 200 km/h.
Besides the adjustable spoiler, the Abarth 695 70°
Anniversario features many elements harking back to the brand’s past. Those
include the Monza 1958 green livery (a tribute to the color of the first 500
Abarth that set six international records at Monza that year), the Record Monza
active exhaust with quad tips, and Campovolo grey exterior accents.
The same color can be found on the Scorpion stickers
on the bonnet and the checkered sticker on the roof. Details that are harder to
spot are the old-fashioned font and vintage Scorpion emblems featured on the
car.
The limited edition Abarth 695 rides on 17-inch
SuperSport alloy wheels and comes with red Brembo calipers as standard for the
305-mm front brake discs and 240-mm rear discs. The car
actually needs all that braking power because it’s equipped with the most
powerful engine in the lineup, a 1.4-liter turbo-four delivering 180 PS and 250 Nm of torque at 3,000 rpm.
As with the Abarth 695 Rivale, the 70° Anniversario
sprints from 0 to 100 km/h in 6.7 seconds and hits a top speed of 225
km/h with the roof spoiler in its most horizontal position. The special edition hot hatch
features a fair share of upgrades inside too, including exclusive “Sabelt
Tricolore” bucket seats and a numbered plate for each of the 1,949 units that
will be made.
