WORKS FORCE

Abarth's 124 Spider is often overlooked as a rally hero. Richard Heseltine reckons it's time to set the record straight

- Richard Heseltine

The streets are crooked, narrow and serpentine; a splatter of dwellings communing with nature, bar a couple of holdouts. A man of meagre cheer looks on, offering a glare that could maim, but he has every reason to be miffed. We are making a bit of a racket, after all, though it's hard not to when you are driving a rally car; one that has trouble getting out of its own way at low revs, but gingers up conspicuously at the 5000rpm mark. Which is where the commotion starts: open exhausts tend to have that effect. Our arrival is trumpeted from at least a mile away.

It doesn't help that this street's a dead end, and reverse gear appears to be migratory. It's never where you left it but, hey, this Abarthised Fiat 124 is all about forward momentum and always has been. More runs for the photographer, more commotion, then it's back to the nearby Circuito do Estoril, but not before we dodge Olympic-sized potholes and cough and splutter past the outbuildings behind the track. They are in regular use, and the 'colourful' sorts who frequent them are not at all happy at the ruckus. Neither are their clients.

The choice of this historic if dormant Portuguese venue is apposite, given that the car pictured here lapped the circuit in anger in period. It did so during the country's round of the World Rally Championship. It was fielded by the factory and later by one of the leading national squads, complete with backing from the local concessionaire. And that is before you factor in its role as a development mule, plus assorted privateer campaigns. The livery isn't just for show, here. This is a warhorse, and one that was central to the story of a car that tends to be overlooked whenever rallying in the 1970s is discussed.