Differing Fortunes: The Abarth 1300 OT and The1600 OT Sport Coupe
Left: Abarth 1300 OT (1 st Series). Courtesy Autoemotodepoca.com; Right: Abarth 1600 OT Sport Coupe. Courtesy Thomas Bersy Abarth’s extraordinary run of sportscar racing success, taking a World Championship for six consecutive years in the Sixties, is summarised in https://davidbuckdenlooksback.blogspot.com/2022/05/the-magnificent-six-abarths-60s-world.html . Initially, it was the 1000 Bialbero GT which brought home the victories, but in ’63-’65 the mantle passed to the Simca-based 1300 GT. With the lapse of the agreement between Abarth and the French manufacturer, a priority at Corso Marche became the creation of a new model to contest the championship from ’66. A prototype coupe emerged in ’64. A Mario Colucci-owned project, the car was mid-engined and built around a tubular chassis, very distinctive in appearance and dynamically promising. But on this occasion Carlo Abarth stuck to his guns regarding the configuration, his concern about the relative costs of constructi