Hi,
I am Alex Kartschall from germany and I worked together with Roberto Motta from Italy for the article you posted at page 1.
I don't know if it's clear, there were altogether 6 cars built by Abarth. The picture with serial numbers of
http://www.x1-9.it is not right!
TO H02940, Serial # 133, this chassis is one of the cars which where used for the presentation of the X1/9 in 1972 at Sicily. This car I told the "protoype of the Prototipo's", was going to Abarth in 1973. They made the first experiments with this car, before they've got 5 more chassis with serial # 23001 to 23005 in 1974. This car was sold to Al Cosentino, he raced it at Daytona. This and one more Prototipo was sold to Japan later.
TO L65335, serial # 23002 was registered like the other Prototipo's in September 1974, it's one of the two race cars which were used at several rallyes in italy. This car was sold with TO H02940 to Al Cosentino and later together with TO H02940 to Japan. This car actually is in italy and waits for restauration.
TO L65336, serial # 23003: This car was the "Muletto", a test car to test new parts. This car was later sold to an italian man who entered in hill climb and slalom races. The car became a Dallara kit (like you can see on page 80 of the article). The car was bought by Gino Macaluso in the early 1990ies, he rebuilt the car in original condition with the 16V Abarth engine.
TO L65337, serial # 23001: the second race car that was used in several rallyes in Italy. This car was going to france together with TO L65336 and was driven by Darniche/Mahé in several rallyes is france. Fiat was testing Michelin tyres with these cars. In 1975 the Prototipo project was already cancelled by Fiat, anyway they made tests in France with a complete fiat service team. This car was sold to an italian man who entered on many stock car races in Italy. Because the car was damaged too much he restored it to original condition and placed the original 16V engine into it. This and the Macaluso car are the only drivable cars in the moment. In 2005 I visited the owner and was able to see the car "in action". It was very impressive
There are missing 23004 and 23005. One of these must be the Stradale which is still owned by Al Cosentino, the other one is the "mysterious 6th car". We believe that it was a not finished spare chassis for the race cars. The stradale was tested by Giogio Pianta in the streets of Torino, I have one picture where you can see him inside the car. This car was use for the homologation form for the CSAI to get the homologation in group 4 in 1974. This homologation form was on the way to the CSAI office, but Macaluso has got a telephone call to return to Torino before he was able to submit it.
If have documents to attest all I wrote above, including the registration papers of the registered cars and the homologation forms. So I think you can believe in what I wrote
Regards, Alex
