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Fiat 131 Abarth Rally Stradale – The Car That Won The World Rally Championship 3 Times

This is one of 400 homologation specials of the Fiat 131 Abarth Rally built to ensure the car complied with FIA Group 4 rally specifications. The race version of the 131 Abarth Rally was wildly success in top flight rally competition, winning the World Rally Championship manufacturers’ title three times, in 1977, 1978, and in 1980.

When the Fiat 131 was first introduced in 1974, it was a relatively staid design with three box styling, a steel unibody chassis, and a front-mounted engine driving a live axle rear end. The car was designed to be affordable to the masses, easy to repair when needed, and cheap to maintain.

What the Fiat 131 hadn’t been designed for was racing, the job to turn it from a grocery-getter into a world rally championship contender fell to Abarth – Fiat’s in-house performance tuning department, much like AMG is to Mercedes-Benz or M is to BMW.

Building The Fiat 131 Abarth Rally

Each rally car started with a standard Fiat 131 steel unibody shell which was acquired directly from the Fiat factory production line. Fiberglass flared fenders would then be fitted, along with a new fiberglass hood and trunk lid for weight reduction. This new bodykit included a lower front with an air dam and a small spoiler on the trunk lid.

It was well understood by this time in the 1970s that a car with a live axle rear end would be at a significant disadvantage, so the live axle in the back of the 131 was removed and a new independent suspension system was designed for the car.

A new MacPherson strut suspension arrangement was developed and fitted at the rear, matching the MacPherson strut, track control arms, and anti-roll bar used on the front end. The 1.6 liter engine used on the 131 was significantly modified by Abarth engineers, the capacity was increased to 2.0 liters and it was upgraded with a newly designed alloy head featuring double overhead cams and four valves per cylinder.

In race trim this engine was capable of 245 hp which helped it go on to win 20 World Rally Championship events with drivers like Markku Alen, Walter Röhrl, Michèle Mouton, Sandro Munari, Timo Salonen, and Attilio Bettega. Markku Alen and Walter Röhrl would win the WRC drivers’ championship in the Fiat 131 Abarth Rally in 1978 and 1980 respectively.

Above Image: The looks of the Fiat 131 were significantly changed by the addition of wider wheel aches, a new hood with an air scoop, a spoiler on the trunk lid and an air dam up front.

The street or “stradale” version of the 131 was called the Fiat 131 Abarth Rally Stradale, as mentioned above Abarth needed to make 400 of them and offer them for sale to the general public in order to quality for racing, which they did, creating one of the most desirable Italian homologation specials of the era.

Whereas the styling of the regular Fiat 131 could perhaps be described as a little boring, the 131 Abarth Rally was anything but. With its wide wheel arches and purposeful body kit the car looked the business, and as its competition attests, it wasn’t just all for show.

These original 400 homologation specials are now highly desirable, regularly fetching well over $100,000 USD when appearing for sale.

The 1976 Fiat 131 Abarth Rally Stradale Shown Here

The car you see here is a 1976 Fiat 131 Abarth Rally Stradale, it has fewer than 50,700 kilometers showing on odometer and it was recently refurbished mechanically and cosmetically.

This 131 was originally sold to its first owner in Ancona, Italy, it would remain in its country of origin for much of its life. More recently the car moved to Switzerland and it has since benefitted from over $50,000 USD worth of mechanical and cosmetic work, including work on the engine, transmission, brakes, wheels, exhaust, bodywork, bushings, and seals.

It’s now being offered by RM Sotheby’s in June with a price guide of CHF 95,000 to CHF 150,000, which works out to approximately $103,000 to $163,000 USD. If you’d like to read more about it or register to bid you can click here to visit the listing.

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A Car Motorcycle Hybrid – The SEAL Family Motorcycle Combination

This is one of just two surviving examples of the unusual SEAL Family Motorcycle, it’s essentially a half car, half motorcycle hybrid with a sidecar that can seat four. The motorcycle itself has no seat at all, and the sidecar contains a steering wheel and the controls for the motorcycle’s clutch, throttle, gears, and brakes.

The first question you probably have is why someone would design a vehicle like this and the answer is very simple – taxes. As a British three-wheeled machine the SEAL was taxed as a motorcycle which was far less expensive that automobile tax, it also only cost as much as a motorcycle combination – that is, a motorcycle with a sidecar attached.

Many other manufacturers created their own three-wheelers to target this same loophole, the most famous of which must certainly be Morgan who are still famous today for their reverse tricycles.

Most of these vehicles would be killed off by more traditional four-wheeled cars like the Austin 7, which was small and cheap but a lot safer to operate and far less likely to topple over.

This vehicle design was first produced by Haynes and Bradshaw from 1912 to 1920, and then by SEAL for a number of years until at least the early 1930s, after which time the company seems to have ceased operations.

Above Image: The positive camber of the vehicle when viewed from the front is largely cancelled out once the passengers are seated as their weight helps to compress the suspension.

Unlike a regular motorcycle with a removable sidecar, the SEAL used a single tubular frame so the two halves were not able to be separated. The motorcycle itself had no seat or controls, and the sidecar was equipped in essentially the same manner as an early cycle car.

The model you see here was designed to accommodate a family of four, with two adults in the front and two children in the back, although exactly how comfortable this would have been is debatable. It’s clear that navigating right-hand turns would have warranted significant caution, particularly with a full load.

Both regular and commercial versions of the SEAL were available, the commercial version had a van-like body on the side for carrying cargo, but it could also be ordered with a simple tray for a slightly lower cost.

Early versions of the vehicle were powered by a 770cc JAP V-twin engine and had tiller steering, this was a reasonably powerful engine for the era, so driving the SEAL must have taken no small amount of skill.

Above Image: The sidecar can hold two adults and two children, and it has a folding top.

Later vehicles like the one you see here were fitted with the even more powerful 980cc JAP V-twin, and they had slightly more refined controls with a proper steering wheel.

As mentioned above, this is believed to be one of just two survivors of this model, meaning it has obvious historic importance, and it will likely end up in a private collection or a museum.

The original registration number in the UK of MB 9768 has now lapsed and the listing explains that it is not recorded in the HPI database – as a result any prospective buyer would need to do some due diligence if they wanted to ensure it could be reregistered and driven on the road.

With a price guide of £16,000 to £20,000 this must surely be one of the least expensive ways to get yourself on the controls of a 980cc JAP V-twin, though you’ll likely stop traffic wherever you go and gather crowds when you stop for fuel.

If you’d like to read more about the endearingly unusual SEAL Family Motorcycle Combination you can click here to visit the listing on Bonhams. It’s due to cross the auction block on the 4th of July in England as part of The Summer Sale auction.

Images courtesy of Bonhams

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There’s A Porsche Carrera GT Engine Block For Sale

This is an original Porsche Carrera GT engine block, it’s been completely stripped down of all its components and it’s being offered for sale as a bare block that’ll likely be used as a display piece.

The Porsche Carrera GT engine has a fascinating history, development first started out back in 1992 when Porsche secretly developed the V10 for the Footwork Formula One team. This project was shelved before completion however the engine refused to go quietly, it was resurrected in the late 1990s for a planned Porsche Le Mans prototype.

This Le Mans prototype project was also shelved, however a modified version of the engine was fitted to the Porsche Carrera GT concept car first shown at the 2000 Paris Motor Show. The public response to this car was so strong that Porsche decided to put it into limited production, helped along by the fact that the then-new Porsche Cayenne had given the company a much-needed boost in income.

The Carrera GT was an advanced car by the standards of the early 2000s, and it would still be classed as such today, it’s built around a rigid carbon fibre monocoque chassis, 380mm SGL Carbon disc brakes, a twin-plate ceramic dry-clutch, and a 600+ hp all-alloy V10 engine.

The engine had been significantly change from its earlier Formula One and subsequent Le Mans configuration to make it suitable for road use. It’s a 68° V10 with an aluminium alloy block and heads, chain driven double overhead cams per bank, four valves per cylinder, variable intake valve timing, sodium-cooled exhaust valves, a compression ratio of 12.0:1, and a swept capacity of 5,733cc or 5.7 liters.

Over the course of the 2003 to 2007 production run Porsche built 1,270 examples of the Carrera GT, today they remain highly sought after and the model is remembered as one of the great supercars of its time.

This bare Carrera GT engine block is due to cross the auction block later this month, it has a price guide of €3,000 to €5,000 and at the time of writing we don’t have a whole lot more information about it. If you’d like to read more or register to bid you can click here to visit the listing.

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For Sale: A 1968 Toyota Corolla Sprinter Trueno Outlaw

This early Toyota Corolla Sprinter has been given a little of the Outlaw treatment, it now has a 1.6 litre 4A-GELU Black Top 20 valve inline-four cylinder engine under the hood – an engine originally fitted to the AE111 Sprinter Trueno.

The Toyota Sprinter isn’t a car we see much of in the world outside of Japan, it was a line of cars based on the Corolla platform that was oriented to people who wanted a more sporting driving experience.

The Toyota Sprinter – An Affordable JDM Sports Car

When Toyota released the first line of Sprinters in 1968 but instead of selling them at the regular Corolla dealership, named the “Toyota Corolla Store,” the Sprinter was sold at a new dealership named the “Toyota Auto Store.”

Toyota wanted the new sporting model to be differentiated from the economy appeal of the Corolla, and so despite the close relationship between the two cars they were treated quite separately. The first Sprinter was based on the first Corolla, the E10 which was launched in 1966.

The E10 Sprinter was essentially a fastback version of the Corolla that used the highest engine specification – initially the twin carburetor 1,077cc K-B engine with 13 hp over the stock engine, which was followed by the twin carburetor 3K-B with an increased displacement of 1,166cc in 1969.

These first Sprinters certainly weren’t fast cars by any measure, but they did offer a fun driving experience and an affordable cost, and as such they proved popular in Japan, quickly becoming a cult classic.

Above Image: This car is fitted with the more powerful 1.6 litre 4A-GELU 20 valve inline-four cylinder engine, it’s been modified from stock and now produces well over the original 160 hp.

Every generation of the Corolla had a Sprinter alter ego until the release of the Toyota Corolla E120 in 2000. By this time Toyota had other sports cars in production that it felt could fill the niche and competition was fierce.

The most famous Sprinter is inarguably the fifth generation, the E80 series, which was immortalized by its inclusion in the “Initial D” Japanese street racing manga (comic book) series written and illustrated by Shuichi Shigeno.

The Toyota Sprinter was always a JDM or Japanese Domestic Market car only, and as a result relatively few of them have made it onto the roads of the West. Those that have been imported are always popular and highly sought after, and increasing demand for vintage Japanese sports cars means that more and more people are learning about Sprinters for the first time.

1968 Toyota Corolla Sprinter

The car you see here started life as a 1968 Toyota Corolla Sprinter, as such it would have originally been fitted with the 1,077cc K-B engine and the 4-speed manual transmission.

Over the course of their lives many original Sprinters of this vintage have had significant work done to make them faster, and this car is no different, it’s been fitted with a 1.6 litre 4A-GELU 20 valve inline-four cylinder engine that was in production from 1995 to 2000.

This engine is commonly called the “Black Top” due to its black cam cover. It’s a considerably more advanced engine that this car’s original four cylinder, the Black Top has VVT or Variable Valve Timing on the inlet valves, an 11:1 compression ratio, and it is capable over 160 hp in factory tune.

The Black Top in this Sprinter has been modified considerably with a custom inlet manifold, an uprated radiator, and a sports exhaust system. To better help the car stop disc brakes have been added all around and a hydraulic handbrake has been fitted.

Inside the car you’ll find a custom air-conditioning system, a wood-rimmed three-spoke steering wheel, a two-tone gear knob, and central voltage, temperature, and oil pressure gauges.

If you’d like to read more about this unusual Sprinter Outlaw you can click here to visit the listing on Collecting Cars. It’s currently being auctioned live and at the time of writing the bidding is at £8,000 with two days remaining.

Images courtesy of Collecting Cars

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An Affordable European Wedge: 1984 Lotus Excel

This is thought to be one of the first examples of the Lotus Excel to be fitted with flared wheel arches, which had been officially introduced for the 1985 model year. The Excel as released in 1982 as a sporting grand tourer with perfect 50/50 weight distribution, that legendary Lotus handling, and the race-derived Lotus 912 engine user the hood.

This model would never be officially imported into the United States and as a result it remains largely unknown in North America, however there are a few that have been imported over the years and they typically prove very popular at car shows.

The Lotus Excel – Chassis, Engine, And Engineering

The Lotus Excel was somewhat based on the earlier Lotus Eclat model, which was based on the earlier Lotus Type 75 Elite. The Excel uses a galvanized steel backbone chassis onto which the fibreglass body is fitted, the body is moulded in upper and lower halves which are then bonded before installation onto the chassis.

This same vehicular architecture had formed the underpinnings of many Lotuses dating back to the 1960s, including the Elan, the Elan 2+2, and the Esprit. This structure was strong and lightweight, it was also reasonably inexpensive for Lotus to build cars – certainly far less expensive than the cost of stamped steel unibodies.

Toyota had contracted Lotus to help them develop the Supra, in particular they wanted Lotus to work on the car’s handling, the Japanese automaker would became a major shareholder in Lotus during this time. As a result many components of the Lotus cars of the time were sourced from Toyota, the Excel used the W58 manual gearbox, driveshafts, rear differential, alloy wheels, and door handles from the A60 Toyota Supra.

The Excel was powered by the DOHC 2.2 liter inline-4 cylinder Lotus Type 912 engine, this same engine was used in the Lotus Esprit and the Eclat. The 912 was one of the final iterations of the Lotus 900 series which had been in production since 1972.

The suspension consisted of coil springs and telescopic shock absorbers front and back, up front there is a single transverse lower arm with an anti-roll bar and a wishbone above the lower arm. In the rear there is a wishbone was mounted below the transverse links.

The Lotus Excel was joined in the Lotus model family by the Lotus Esprit, the Esprit being the sports car and the Excel being more of a sporting grand tourer (GT). Inside the Excel you’ll find 2+2 seating, opulent upholstery throughout, a well equipped dashboard, and plenty of trunk space in the back by Lotus standards.

Depending on model version the performance specifications car vary somewhat, but the SE model is capable of 0 to 60 mph in 7.2 seconds and onto a top speed of approximately 130 mph.

The Lotus Excel Shown Here

The Excel you see here is a 1984 model and as mentioned above it’s one of the first with the desirable flared wheel arches. This car has been in a private collection since 2016 and it presents in good condition throughout for a car that’s never been restored.

The car is still fitted with its original Lotus 912 engine and its reliable Toyota W58 manual gearbox. It’s finished in bright red with an attractive light beige interior, and it has 76,790 miles on the odometer.

This Excel is currently being auctioned live by Collecting Cars, at the time of writing the bidding is at £6,000 with two days remaining. If you’d like to read more about it or register to bid you can click here to visit the listing.