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The Abarth Scorpione arose from the Lombardi Grand Prix, a Fiat 850 derivative and the brainchild of Carlo “Francis” Lombardi, who’s Carrozzeria Francis Lombardi produced some notable coupés, estate cars, and limousines on Fiat chassis.

The Grand Prix, a steel-bodied coupé with a Kammback stern and a low nose with pop-up headlamps, debuted in March 1968 at the Geneva Motor Show. The original Lombardi Grand Prix had standard 850 mechanicals, but later models adopted the 850 Special engine.

Lombardi and Franco Giannini formed Officina Trasformazioni Automobili Sportive (a sports car conversion shop) and sold a tuned twin-cam version as the OTAS Grand Prix, also marketed as the Giannini 1000 Grand Prix, in Italy.

Meanwhile, Carlo Abarth worked on his own variation, which utilised a 903-cubic centimetre engine, producing 51 brake horsepower, and a radiator that had been moved to the front for better cooling. In 1969 came the Abarth 1300 Scorpione, his last independently developed car. For this, he had taken a 1,200-cubic centimetre Fiat engine from the 124 S and bored out an additional 2.5 millimetres, bringing it to 1,280 cubic centimetres and making it good for 74 brake horsepower. Auto, Motor und Sport tested the Scorpione and pushed it to nearly 110 mph.

Est. 125 bhp, 1,280 cc DOHC inline four-cylinder engine, four-speed manual transmission, independent coil-over-shock front suspension, coil-spring independent rear suspension with semi-trailing arms, and four-wheel hydraulic disc brakes. Wheelbase: 2,045 mm

The Abarth Scorpione is different from the Abarth cars that we know today, with the first clue to this being right in the name. Modern Abarths aren’t branded exclusively as Abarths, but rather as a trim/sub-brand for Fiat . The Scorpione is indeed the last car developed entirely by Abarth, although there are still plenty of Fiat parts to be found in it. The car is a reworked tuner version of the Lombardi Grand Prix, itself a heavily reworked version of the Fiat 850. Making the Scorpione doubly tuned, if that’s a thing. This one was sold to be a race car , but was modified once again by its second owner, who made some motorsport -specific changes to the car.

The car was first developed as a Lombardi for 1968, with the Abarth model following shortly thereafter. The Lombardi would last until 1972, but when Fiat bought out all of Abarth in 1971, one of the first things it did was kill off the Scorpione. So with as rare as the Grand Prix is, the Scorpione is even rarer. But the one you see here, from 1969, is a unique version of the car, and quite possibly the most powerful example in existence.

The styling of the Scorpione is largely unchanged from the Grand Prix, but is unrecognizable as being based on the Fiat 850. The 850 was a (very) small economy car with a very utilitarian design. Lombardi saw its potential as a sports car platform because of its rear engine layout. It is still a very small car though, and one that weighs just 1,390 pounds. This specific Scorpione has been modified, particularly the nose, which was changed completely by the second owner. The original wasn’t quite as steeply sloped and featured pop-up headlights. The NACA ducts in the rear of the bodywork are also custom. It has to be said that a lot of people would probably consider this less attractive than the original, but then it wasn’t designed to be attractive, it was designed to go fast.

Calling the inside of any race car an interior is being generous, and this one isn’t really any different. Still, a surprising amount of the original equipment has survived the conversion. The seats, for example, haven’t been replaced by buckets, and the big center-mounted gauge cluster has stayed. The carpet and radio are gone, but the fact that not much else is tells you a lot about how much was originally included.

In its various forms, the Grand Prix was offered with quite a few different engines. The original Lombardi just used the engine out of the Fiat 850 that it was based on. This was an 813cc, four-cylinder engine that produced 43 horsepower. This was a very light car, but the horsepower figure was still entirely too low, and this was part of the motivation for Abarth to make some changes. So the first Abarth upgraded to a 903cc engine that made 52 horsepower.

Upgrades to this came out quickly, and soon there was an “Abarth 1300 Scorpione”, with a 1280cc engine out of a Fiat 124 that made 75 horsepower. This was upgraded for the Scorpione SS, of which only four were built, to 100 horsepower. The car here was originally fitted with the 903cc engine, but was retrofitted with one of the 124 engines. This was further tweaked to eventually produce 125 horsepower. Being such a light car, it performed admirably for its class on the track.

Along with other tuners (such as Giannini), Carlo Abarth also had a look at the Grand Prix. Abarth's version, first seen at the 1968 Paris Motor Show, received a tuned version of the larger 903 cc engine from the recently introduced Fiat 850 Sport Coupé/Sport Spider. The resulting variant has a claimed 52 PS (38 kW), providing performance more suitable to the sporting bodystyle and name. For better cooling than the original Lombardi and OTAS, Abarth mounted the cooler up front, in the air stream.

In 1970 Abarth showed the considerably more powerful "Abarth 1300 Scorpione", what was to be Abarth's last independently developed car. Equipped with a version of the Fiat 124s 1.2 litre engine, bored out by 2.5 mm for a total of 1280 cc, this model has 75 PS (55 kW) and only moderately more weight, ranging from 680 to 750 kg (1,500 to 1,650 lb) depending on the source. In a 1970 road test by Auto, Motor und Sport, the Scorpione reached 175.6 km/h (109.1 mph), close to the claimed 180 km/h (112 mph). There is also mention of a 982 cc Abarth 1000 OT-engined version of the Scorpione. The Scorpione had a special Abarth-made bell housing, to allow matching the 124 engine to the four-speed 850 gearbox.

Abarth's Mario Colucci also developed the 100 hp (75 kW) Scorpione SS. This powerful model was extensively re-engineered, with a coil-over front suspension, a reworked rear suspension, anti-sway bars front and rear, and all-wheel Girling disc brakes. Top speed is 115 mph (185 km/h). This model was foreshadowed by the "Scorpione S" of 1969, which had this higher developed chassis combined with the lower powered engine. With the rear-mounted heavier 124 engine weight distribution has a distinct rear bias (39/61), although this seems to have had only a modest effect on handling, limited to some front-end lift at higher speeds. After Abarth was taken over by Fiat in 1971, the Scorpione was quickly cancelled.