Ultimatecarpage.com update (03-12-08)

[Wouter Melissen]

Dear Ultimatecarpage.com visitor,

Over the past sixty years Porsche has produced dozens of racing cars. Very few of these were not successful and even less were built with the help of a third party. One of the rare exceptions to the latter is the 356B Abarth GTL, which as the name suggests was built by Austrian born Italian Carlo Abarth. Porsche turned to Abarth in 1960 after their own racing version of the production based 356B started to fall behind the (Italian) competition. In the previous years Abarth had shown that he could turn far less exotic machinery than Porsche's twin-cam 356 into race winners. On the track the slippery and very light Porsche Abarth more than matched the high expectations. The car proved to be a winner straight out of the box and dominated the 1.6 and 2 litre categories for several year. It scored no fewer than three straight class victories in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Despite the machine's fantastic track record, Porsche severed the ties with Abarth before the first 20 examples of a proposed 40 were built. Reasons for canceling the contract were the constant delays and concerns over the poor fit and finish of the bodies, which were not built by Zagato as Porsche expected and historians believed for a long time. Having learned their lesson, Porsche started the development of a whole new generation of racing cars that were as light and slippery as the Italian creations, but with German quality.
Our detailed feature gives an in depth account of the Porsche Abarth's history and is well illustrated with imagery from no fewer than four surviving examples.

Porsche 356B Abarth GTL - Ultimatecarpage.com - Images, Specifications and Information

Regards,
Wouter Melissen