The development of an Abarth vehicle: where the synergies and diversities reinforce the brand’s heritage

An Abarth vehicle is, for its own nature, developed starting from a mass production model, that is built with the objective to make big volumes, allowing a quite easy return of investment but very reduced customization possibilities for the customer. This mainstream model, that usually is a Fiat car, is developed following a specific process, featuring specific rules and timings, based on milestones created around the objectives and the characteristics typical of that kind of car. Clearly an Abarth, being a sporty and technical vehicle, has totally different needs and objectives than the donor car: the Abarth is a niche vehicle, so it produces very reduced volumes (with a subsequent impact on the return of investment, that can be guaranteed only by increasing the price of the car) and contemporarily it needs some specific contents, derived from the racing world, often produced by suppliers specialized in components for track use only, that have to convert them for a road car. Undoubtedly, to satisfy all the peculiar requirements of an Abarth, is therefore necessary to dedicate to the models of this brand a specific development process, held by a dedicated department, that has to be specialized in this kind of vehicles. In the case of Stellantis, there is a separated department called Motorsport, known for making race cars of different typologies (from Le Mans prototypes to Dakar off-road vehicles) as well as converting mainstream road cars into successful sporty models (i.e. all the Peugeot GT and GTI models). Motorsport, leveraging on its dedicated and leaner processes and expertise, is therefore capable to give to a road car a racing soul, perfectly fitting the Abarths’ mission. In this paper the specific development process of an Abarth vehicle will be presented and explained, showing how much it differs from that of a mainstream car and how the synergies and diversities exploited with Motorsport department are capable to support the project, by reinforcing the brand’s heritage, to realize a pure Abarth car.