In April 1966 FIAT started production of the 124 saloon with a push-rod 1187cc engine. Working at Fiat was the legendary engine specialist Aurelio Lampredi, who, whilst at Ferrari had brought about the down-fall of the mighty Alfa Romeo 158/9s in 1952 with his un-supercharged 4.5 litre Ferraris. When Vittorio Jano joined Ferrari with the disbanded Lancia team in 1955, Lampredi moved to Fiat. After designing the 1300, 1500 and 2300 engines, he drew up the classical twin cam engine designs for the Dino V6 and 124 Spider / Sport Coupe.

Prototypes of the 124 Spider were tested in April 1966 and the first car was shown at the Turin Show in November 1966. Initial cars were powered with 1438cc engines, later enlarged to 1608cc, 1756cc, and finally 1995cc in final form. The same engines powered its sibling Sport Coupe which evolved in 1967, but the Spider is the one we’re concerned with.

The Spider had a close affiliation with Pininfarina as that styling house was responsible for design and also the building, painting and trimming of body-shells. Curiously Fiat decided to target the USA as the main market, but a large number were also exported to Europe, and in particular, Germany. As a result none were produced in a RHD version.

They had an interesting competition history starting with the 1971 World Rally Championship when Fiat-Abarth 124 cars ran against Alpine-Renault, Porsche 911 and others, with limited success. In 1972 cars were entered in a number of rally events with a little more success but homologation of the Abarth Rally CSO was completed. From this point through to the end of 1975 the cars scored some notable victories on the world rally circuit and proved the worth of an engine design already 10 years old.

Our car is a CSO 2000 Spider built in 1981 with fuel injected 1995cc engine and a 5 speed gear-box. It arrived in New Zealand from California in 1988 and underwent an excellent conversion to RHD. All the California anti-smog devices have been removed and a few small "gremlins" were fixed after we bought it in late 1997. Since then we have enjoyed many hours of exciting motoring and the intention is to get it back to European specification in the near future.

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