Abarth 1500 Biposto

Information

Carlo Abarth decided to come to the 1952 Turin Motor Show with a coachbuilt Abarth after the previous year when he exhibited a Vignale-bodied, Michelotti-designed coupé that was deemed too similar to what both of them previously made for Ferrari. This was his way to promote his brand that, until that point (and during its whole existence), catered only to track-focused cars.

Carlo Abarth made a bespoke chassis for this one-off and took a 1400cc Fiat inline-4 that he bored out 1500cc and fitted 3 Weber carburettors. The young Franco Scaglione was responsible of the bodywork. This car would be his first aerodynamic design concept, preceding the three Alfa Romeo B.A.Ts from the following years. The three-pointed front with protruding side and center headlights, kind of like a crown seen from above, would give a sense of dynamism to the Biposto.

During the 1952 Turin Motor Show where the car made its first public appearance it was bought by Bill Graves and Edward Macauley of the Packard Motor Company. These two would end up buying the car and taking it to Detroit, where the Packard headquarters were located back then. This might have happened because James C. Nance was appointed President of the Packard Motor Car Company at that time and despite not agreeing with Scaglione's extravagant design (he said Packard would give up on 'lunar asparagus'), he might have still been interested in studying Franco's work, hence buying his car.

The Biposto is handed over to Richard Austin Smith in 1953 as a gift for providing the motoring company with sales slogans. He clocks around 30000 kilometers by the time he stores it away in the mid to late 70s in a garage in Connecticut, where would stay and rot until 2003 when Rick Carey, appointed by Christie's Head of Motoring Department Miles Morris, takes the car out of hiding. It was in a bad state and in a darker shade of blue than the original tone from Turin 1952, yet finds a new owner in Christie's NY auction from 2003. It then starts a 7-year restoration job.

Gary Kaberle, the owner of the Alfa Romeo B.A.T 9 (the last aerodynamic concept of the Bertone designer), stumbles upon the 1500 Biposto while taking his 9 to the 2005 Pebble Beach Concours of Elegance. What happened is that a pothole that the trailer went over made it so the B.A.T 9 gets its wheels unlocked and hits the insides of the trailes, receiving some body damage. Kaberle takes the car to a local coachbuilder which so happens to be restoring the 1500 Biposto!

The Abarth was later shown at Pebble Beach in 2010 and Goodwood Festival of Speed in 2011.