Vehicle History

#33 started life as a Abarth 850 TC. It was originally sold as a right hand drive car from Abarth to the Abarth distributor in Holland. After some period of time the car found its way to Radbourne Motors England, where a young university student by the name of Dick Ward. from Perth, in Western Australia, acquired it as his daily tranport.

Dick finished his schooling and returned to Perth, along with the 850 TC. By this time it was a 1000TC as the motor had been upgraded. Dick campaigned the car in Western Australia for a number of years, with the culmination being his monster Abarth, powered by a twin rotor Mazda rotary engine. You can see a picture of this car in some of the books published by Al Cosentino. All of the mechanicals had been removed from the chassis by this time and stored in milk crates. The car was eventually crashed and totally disappeared. Dick never removed the chassis identification plates from the chassis and they went to their death in a crusher somewhere in Western Australia.

Some time later, what was left over of the car, was purchased by a Mr. Tony Bick of Melbourne, Victoria. He sourced a locally produced Fiat 600 chassis to start the rebuilding process. While many of the parts of the car are obviously post 1964, the chassis is a pre 64 car with suicide doors. It should be noted that Fiat only assembled the 600 D car in Australia, using a local bus manufacturer as the assembler, up to 1964. Therefore there were no 600D's ever assembled there that had "conventional doors.

I purchased the car from Tony in 1994 for the then princely sum of AUS$15,000. While it was advertised as a 1000 TC, it had a motor based on a 843 block, not the fabled 600 H-block. This has not hampered the car as it has been fast enough to win many times. The car was equipped with many Abarth original parts, including some original Campagnolo Elektron magnesium wheels with the name Abarth cast into them. He had a whole treasure trove of other parts, including two five speed gearboxes and 2 complete Radiale motors (with original H-blocks), but unfortunately I did not have the required cash to purchase them. These were later sold to another Abarth owner in San Francisco, to resurrect a factory original 1000 TCR (Radiale).

Over the years the car has been rallied in Australia and the US in such events as the Australian Repco Mountain Rallye and the Las Millas Encantadas in New Mexico. SInce 1997 I have campaigned the car with the Vintage Auto Racing Association in Southern California, where in 1997 I was fortunate enough to win a G-Production class championship.