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Fiats generally may have been seen in rallies longer than Lancia, but Fiat's works involvement was more a reaction to Lancia doing so first. The two makes and their actions were closely linked already back then. Fiat's involvement over many years was in form of supporting privateers using i.e. the compact Fiat 850 or the Fiat 125 Saloon. Then, in 1969 already Fiat's daughter, Lancia started running their Fulvia HF model as a works car with considerable success. Whatever startegy was behind it, Fiat wanted to be as successful as daughter Lancia in that category. Such Fiat's first proper works entries started not long after Lancia and they even choose a car that was designed for the same market as the Lancia Fulvia HF: the Fiat 124 Spider. OK, on closer looks you find differences, the Fiat was a Spider and it was RWD as opposed to Lancia's FWD Coupé. As well the engines were different, despite fairly similar power output, the Fiat had a 1.8 4-cylinder in line while the Lancia had a 1.6 V4. So far the basic and important layout differences.
But the other point is Fiat indeed only started rallying as a works team after Lancia had first image building successes in doing so. It is maybe the wrong term saying "Fiat has overlooked that...", what other car should Fiat have choosen at the time. The situation was in any case that the Fulvia had a unique, convenient layout, plus when Lancia turned a works team with the Fulvia, their car was an evolution from 3 years rally experiences with lesser versions of the Fulvia, even if semi official. When the Fiat 124 Spider debuted in rallying to match the Fulvia, the car was from the very same market segment, but had a less fortunate layout and no rally experiences to built on! This meant not only had Fiat some catching up to do, on the paper their car had a bigger engine too, but it was in fact less powerful and in a heavier shell!
Latter, the weight aspect, needs a further mention. Fiat did actually do the clever thing and pitched a plastic hardtop spider against Lancia's full steel coupé. But the Lancia was FWD and the Fiat was RWD. This should make an interesting comparison, same market segment cars by the same mother company, yet in the whole principle different layouts requiring different driving styles. The RWD may have been more fun to watch and in many situations with better traction, but the car was heavier and despite same extirior size less compact. Not much Fiat could do here.
So they had to find something in the engine to catch up with the cleverly designed Fulvia. And this is why we only list 1 version of the Lancia Fulvia, but 3 of the Fiat 124. For engine work and also for the time frame:
When Lancia started as a proper works team in 1969, the Lancia Fulvia HF 1.6 was a fully developped rally winner. When Fiat started as a works team some months later, their 124 Spider also had a 1.6 engine but was quite down in power compared to its lighter sister. And although the Fiat 124 Spider became a very famous rally car of its era, this gap was very difficult to catch up. Exactly with the beginning of the WRC, on the Rallye Monte Carlo 1973, Fiat presented a 1.8 litre version of their car, that tuned with the help of Abarth now exactly matched the 165BHP figure of the Lancia Fulvia V4. Only by now Lancia already had 4 years of experience with their equally as powerful car! In fact despite this disadvantage we saw some exciting fights between Fiat 124 & Lancia Fulvia on the WRC events 1973 & 1974.
Fiat eventually surpassed the Lancia Fulvia in power. It seemed nearly a desperate method when they increased the displacement of their famous "1800" engine from 1756cc to 1839cc, but importantly from Monte Carlo 1975 they had a 16v cylinder head plus injection replacing carburators. (There were also experiments with a mid-engined Fiat X1/9 coupé with both these 124 Spider engine variations – which is hard to fit in anywhere and therefore is found in the _others_, _ancient_ manufacturer section.) Now the 124 Spider was not only one of Fiat's most characterful designs ever, it could reliably outperform its arch rival, the Lancia Fulvia.
There was only one tiny detail that was wrong with the car: Already 3 months earlier Lancia debuted a group4 version of their Stratos - wonder why Fiat hated it?!!!
|
Model & Evo. (Activity) |
BHP@ RPM |
Torque (Nm)@ RPM |
Length Width Height |
Weight (Kg/BPM Ratio) |
Trans. (W'base) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 124 Spider Abarth (73-76) |
165/7200 | 162/5200 | 3910.1630.1240 | 980 (5.9) | RWD (2280) |
|
124 Spider Abarth 16v (75-76) |
201/8000 | 190/6000 | 3910.1630.1240 | 980 (4.9) | RWD (2280) |
|
124 Spider Sport (0-0) |
150/7200 | 165/8000 | 3970.1610.1340 | 1020 (6.8) | RWD (2280) |
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