Abarth Classiche 1300 OT: the Alfa Romeo 4C lives! But fortunately not for long…

► Surprise Abarth Classiche 1300 OT
► Based on Alfa Romeo 4C sportscar
► Just five examples will be built

The Alfa Romeo 4C should have been an Abarth from the beginning. Fiat’s in-house tuning brand has built a reputation not for delivering ultra-precise driving weaponry but rather cheeky, raucous cars that can put a grin on your face in spite – or perhaps because – of their flaws. Hence its great fun to see the 4C chassis resurrected again for a limited run of Abarth Classiche 1300 OT models.

Created as a 75th anniversary present to Abarth by the Stellantis Heritage team (who knew?), this new two-seater, mid-engined sports car is a homage to Abarth OT 1300 of 1965. The original was also based on a donor chassis – that of the contemporary Fiat 850.

Just five examples will be produced as part of an ongoing ‘Reloaded by Creators’ project. As yet none have been completed; the only physical example present at the announcement was a 1:3 scale model.

Unusually, Stellantis claims it’s still looking for buyers – typically this limited run stuff is sold out before we get to see it – but given it hasn’t released a price, or very much concrete info at all really, we’re guessing the customer vetting process has already begun.

Exactly. The Italians managed to produce a full carbonfibre sports car at roughly the same price point as a Porsche Cayman, but forgot to do anything about making it good to drive. Rumours remains rife about fundamental geometry issues in the suspension design; regardless, your humble scribe drove several 4Cs back when they were new, and the best thing you could say about them was that you certainly felt alive. As in, relieved you still were after turning the engine off.

Add that to the barmy cacophony of said 1.7-litre turbo and dual-clutch gearbox combo, and an interior with wildly amusing control decisions and plastic toy quality, and maybe you can understand why it might have worked better as an Abarth in the first place. No-one would have expected cutting edge handling capability, and they’d have swallowed the rest of it as ‘character’.

The proportions give the 4C chassis away, but it’s rebodied – or at least, the front and rear clamshells have