Simca Abarth 1150.

Carlo Abarth is well known in the racing world for the exhaust systems that bore his name, the cars he designed and raced and for his work modifying Fiats 500s and 600s into the precursors of hot hatches such as the Golf GTI: the concept is similar, a big engine in a small, mass produced car.

Simca is well known in European competition for their 1000 Rallye and 1000 Rallye 2. But the idea of making the boxy, rear-engined Simca 1000 go fast didn’t start with the 1000 Rallye in 1972, it started with Carlo Abarth in the early 1960s.

Abarth chose the Simca 1000 as his next project partly because it was newer than the Fiat 600s and 500s (introduced in 1955 and 1957 respectively) and the idea of racing them apparently hadn’t crossed the minds of many other folks. Another reason is that when Simca introduced the 1000 in 1961 it became immensely popular on the French market. It was well-designed, reliable and benefited from very decent built quality. Abarth saw the same potential in the little Simca and started drawing out ideas. With the green light from Fiat, which created Simca in 1934 and still owned it at the time, a hundred cars were shipped to the Abarth factory in 1961 to go in for modification. The cars debuted in the 1962 season and proved successful in races across Europe.

Abarth wanted to take it a step further and make these cars available to the public. They were to be part of the Simca lineup and sold through Simca dealers. In 1963 he introduced four variants of the Simca 1000: the 1150, the 1150 S, the 1150 SS and the 1150 Tipo Corsa. The standard Simca 1000 used a 944cc engine, Abarth bored it out to 1137cc, which pushed the base 1150 to 55hp. Other modifications included 13” rims (instead of 12"), disk brakes all around, a tachometer and an oil pressure gauge. The 1150 S saw its power output increased to 58hp but the biggest change can be seen just by looking at it: like on some Fiat-Abarths the radiator was moved to the front which called for the installation of a grille. The 1150 SS and the 1150 SS Tipo Corsa shared this radiator setup while the base 1150 retained the rear-mounted radiator.

The 1150 SS logged a healthy 65hp and saw its compression ratio increased to 9.5:1. The ultimate evolution was the 1150 SS Tipo Corsa. Thanks in part to a 12:1 compression ratio, Abarth managed to get an impressive 85hp out of the engine, a fair amount when you take into account that a standard Simca 1000 puttered along with 40hp under the rear bonnet.

At this point you may be wondering why these cars didn’t create serious competition for the Renault 8 Gordini in the European car market. The explanation lies in a detail that I’ve omitted until this point: these were all built as prototypes. Chrysler took over Simca from Fiat in 1963 and decided to pull the plug on the project, focusing instead on bigger sedans. Consequently very few Simca Abarths were built and they’re unspeakably rare, though a couple of examples have survived.

Below are some period photos I've come across. If you can't click on the photos and want a high-resolution image (for this article or any other), email us at ranwhenparked -at- hotmail -dot- com, tell us what you'd like and we'll send it to you.

Mystery car answer.

This one seemed to be a bit tougher, but a couple of people did guess correctly: it's a Glas GT. A reader from Norway hit the nail on the head by telling us "the car in the photos seems to be a Glas 1300 GT or 1700 GT. The characteristic shape of the badge (or rather what´s behind it) is
evident in the photos. That is why it can´t be one of the later BMW-badged 1600 GTs."

Check back for more mystery cars.

Sharing one of my favorite photos - of my first 2002

I bought this 1975 BMW 2002 on a bit of a whim - it was advertised for an affordable price on craigslist and I had always liked the '02, so I figured... why the hell not?

It was originally a Pacific Northwest car that had received a new BMW engine (minus emissions controls) a short while before the owner before me acquired it. The seller was offering it to raise funds for her hemp-based clothing company (I kid you not). Aside from the obvious body damage and a few thick coats of the correct shade Malaga paint, it was actually a remarkably solid car. It had no serious rust, ran like stink and handled well enough. I cleaned it up, gave it a tune up and drove the heck out of it for a few months before selling it prior to a move. The photo shows an in-progress picture; I had yet to remove the Yakima roof rack (which netted me $50 in BMW budget on Craigslist) and I had only refinished (read: Kryloned) that one rear wheel.

The 2002 - and the 1600 I have now - makes a great usable vintage classic. This photo, which obviously includes both a barn and a classic bus, was my desktop background for months - even after I sold the BMW.

RWP is now on Twitter!

Follow us at http://twitter.com/ran_when_parked

And don't forget to search for us on Facebook!

Mystery car.

I photographed this a few years ago at a Mercedes-Benz repair shop in Marignane, France. If you think you know what it is, send your guess to ranwhenparked -at- hotmail -dot- com. We'll post the correct answer in a few days.

What Lies Beneath: Honda 4 Wheel Steering

Above: Early Honda 4WS prototype using two Accord front-ends sectioned together. Note the red tail/headlights.

In the late 1970s, Honda began researching the possibility of four-wheel-steering as a way of improving upon the basic fundamental design of the automobile. It was an ambitious project for a company, which, up to that point, had only been building cars for a decade or so. They recognized the advantages of having all four wheels steer a vehicle, though the issue would become more complex when choosing between a set of rear wheels that steers in the same or the opposite direction of the front set.
If the rear wheels steer in the opposite direction, the turning radius of the vehicle is reduced (in this case, about 3 feet) and tight-turns become easier to maneuver. However, same-direction steering allows for rapid changes in lateral movement - such as passing maneuvers - with far less actual rotation of the car's body.

Honda opted against picking one method or the other and engineered a mechanism to allow the rear wheels to steer in parallel with the front at slight steering angles, but opposite of the front under tight angles. A separate steering gearbox at the rear of the car performed the complex task of aligning the rear wheels via a solid shaft from the front of the car.

By using planetary gears and eccentric shafts, they were able to allow the rear wheels to turn in one direction, then re-center, and steer the opposite direction all while the driver turns the steering wheel in only one direction.


By 1988, Honda's 4WS system was finally available on the Prelude. Upon testing, the 4WS Prelude was able to not only significantly out-handle its two-wheel-steered sibling, but also embarrass some rather serious machinery from Europe in a slalom test.
Primarily, 4WS was only offered on the Prelude, though some markets did see a 4WS Accord around 1990. Honda continued to offer the 4WS feature on the Prelude throughout the rest of its model life, finally fading out in 2001. Honda wasn't the only car company to offer four-wheel-steering; Toyota, Nissan, and even GM did. However, it could be argued that theirs certainly set the industry standard for over two decades. Unlike many imitators, Honda's system was also fully mechanical, as well as offering variable geometry. With nearly a decade since Honda last offered the system, we are left to wonder if it will make an appearance again, though with such innovation and advantages, I'm surprised it's been this long.

Hillman Husky.

As many of you guessed correctly the mystery car is a Hillman Husky. We'll post another mystery car soon but in the meantime, have a look at other cars rotting in the same Utah junkyard as the Husky.

The Opel Manta was launched in 1970 and production of first generation cars like the one below stopped in 1975. Buick dealers sold Opels on the U.S. market and the Manta could be ordered with a 1600cc or a 1900cc.

Launched in 1961, the Renault Floride (or Caravelle in the U.S.) sat on a Dauphine platform and for better or worse used the Dauphine Gordini's Ventoux engine in 845cc form. The Renault 8's 1108cc replaced the Ventoux in 1965 and gave the Floride a much-needed boost in power. Production stopped in 1968. (As a side note, some early Renault 4s used a standard Dauphine engine bored out to 845cc; despite having the displacement they were different engines.)

The Citroen DS needs no introduction or explanation; besides, it's already been covered in these pages. This is an early DS19 model.

Last one, a Mercedes-Benz w110 190D. As its name implies it uses a 1900cc four cylinder diesel that churns out 55 horsepower.