With the charismatic name of "Abarth Monotipo 98", the Italian Group Stola presented this compact but stunning sport car at the Turin Motor Show, where it made a lot of waves among car makers and stimulated dreams of an exciting come-back of the not forgotten name of Abarth within enthusiasts.

Stola's Abarth Monotipo 98 is a racy. Low and wide two door, two seater, coupé powered by a Fiat derived turbocharged 2 litre 16 valve engine claiming 330 HP at 6500 rpm and driving the front wheels through a manual 5 speed gearbox with viscodrive differential.
Stola suggested a top speed of 290 kph and acceleration time from standing to 100 kph in just less than 5 seconds.

These top performance are supported by the light weight of the car, reported at just 880 kg despite the huge Good Year Eagle F 1 tires of 265/35 ZR 18 size front and rear.
The light alloy wheels have been especially built to the design specified for the Monotipo 98 by OZ Racing in 10x18-inch size and host the same massive Brembo brakes Ferrari fitted to their F 40. They consist of 4 pistons aluminium callipers and ventilated discs measuring 355 x 32 mm. at the front and 335 x 32 mm. at the rear.

______A purist Dream Car.

You can positively call the Monotipo a dream-car. As its name implies (monotipo is Italian for one-of-a-kind) this is the only one-off car built and, unless of an unexpected change of direction, it is not for sale. Unless one day Mr. Stola agrees to sell the Monotipo.

The streamlined yet much sculptured shape of the Monotipo 98 combines the aerodynamic architecture and silhouette of a racing car ready to compete in the 24 hours of Le Mans with modern technology and materials and a very fascinating interior design that straightforwardly speak of racing. The interior and its equipment have been developed in association with Momo Corse, and it shows.

For its style the Monotipo 98 is more of a classic than a contemporary design. The two seater is as much as 4450 mm. long and 1880 mm. wide but its overall height is only 1200 mm. Its wheelbase is 2295 mm. just a bit longer than that of the Dedica. Tracks, front and rear are pretty wide as well. Respectively 1516 and 1582 mm.

The product concept, its design and style are not innovative nor trend setting. For that sort of design work there was only a couple of places to visit at the Turin Show, Fioravanti's F 100 in the first place and at Ghia where Ford's edge design credo was applied to a small station wagon made from the even smaller Ka.

As the name suggest, the Abarth Monotipo 98 has been created by Stola to honour Carlo Abarth and his heritage.

Carlo ABARTH wrote his own name in the history book as the creative and talented engineer that, somewhat like Ferrari and Porsche, moved from a most affordable and very popular car to deliver high performance, sport cars that people could drive on the road during their working week and win races on Sundays. Just more affordable.

Like the first Ferrari ever, also Abarth's first car (after the Cisitalia that he raced under the "Scuderia Carlo Abarth" team) was a 35 HP four cylinder Fiat 1100 engine, tuned up by Cisitalia and subsequently Abarth, that eventually managed to deliver as much as 83 HP.
That car, called Abarth berlinetta 204 A, was first unveiled in May 1950 at the Turin Motor show and is said to be the very first Abarth to carry the mythical emblem of the Scorpion.

Unfortunately, everything - or almost - has dramatically changed (at least on the surface) since the late fifties, and the all-new Stola Abarth Monotipo 98 will hardly be raced on weekends. But it will surely drive on everyday roads, swears Alfredo Stola, the young vice-president of the successful Stola Group. Alfredo Stola has been the motor of the project coming that came climax only at the opening of the Turin Motor Show.

When the gates at the Turin's Lingotto exhibition opened on April 23rd, many visitors stood in admiration in front of the fluorescent red GT car. The peculiar paint work of the "Monotipo 98" has been especially prepared for the show-car by AG Glasurit that calls it with the name of "Live Abarth Red".

Like the charming Dedica delivered by Stola two years ago, the neo-classic Abarth Monotipo 98 has been designed and built with great skill and the passion of enthusiasts. Styled by consultant Aldo Brovarone, 73, who still has a lot of fun creating exotic sport cars, despite he retired from Pininfarina several years ago. He is the stylist who also created the 1996 Stola Dedica and, long before that, beautiful Ferraris such as the Super America and Dino.

_______Fascinating construction process.

Quite significantly, the new dream-car presented by Stola has been allowed to take the name and logo of Abarth, the famous brand owned by Fiat Auto. The top Italian carmaker has actually agreed to the use of the name, and has supported the development of the project, after realising that Alfredo Stola was working at a truly high performance, high quality, automobile conceived and developed with the same spirit and commitment Carlo Abarth used to put in his creations.

The project for the 1998 Turin Motor Show was started late in 1996, on the wave of the outstanding success the Stola Dedica met with the industry, the press and the public and some 18 months before its unveiling with a deep and accurate brain storming and preliminary investigations.

Yet, according to one of the most solid tradition of the Turinese coachbuilders, it was finished just hours before the opening of the motor show for the press preview. No time has been wasted though. In the first months the creative and decision making phase was given the time it deserved.

In fact the very reason why the new Monotipo was completed at the very last minute is to be found in the company success. Early this year work on the Monotipo had to be put on idle to satisfy a last minute request for a show-car by a client. The show car was unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show last March and, according to Alfredo Stola, the Monotipo 98 was not the only show-car built by the company for the Turin Show.

Otherwise, the construction process past the rendering phase went on smoothly with model making and review taking place when time allowed. The priority had always to be given to the Group customers of course.

Unlike the 1996 Stola Dedica, which bodywork demonstrated the company skill at delivering high quality aluminium body panels, the Monotipo 98 dress is all made of carbon fibre to show the potential of the company in this area. Under the skin, the self-bearing structure of the Monotipo 98 is made of steel.

For the creation of this unique prototype Stola combined a series of advanced techniques and technologies using a large variety of materials and calling on the co-operation of many specialists.

The bodywork, doors and bonnets of the new show car have been made at one of the eight companies forming the Stola Group, which specialises in composite material for the avionics industry delivering both production moulds as well as parts.

It is for this reason that the Monoposto 98 makes use of carbon fibre provided by Ciba Chemicals for avionics applications. Chiba Chemicals actually provided all the hi-tech material used by Stola for the modelling and production process of the Monotipo 98.

Also from the avionics industry come the all-important glass areas of Stola's show car. The surfaces plays a major role in the design, style and look of the car and needed to be both highly efficient and extremely well finished. The job has been granted by Isoclima Aerospace, which has gained substantial experience in this field serving top car racing teams. The company has provided high resistant polycarbonate materials with superior optical characteristics obtained by their production process.

Talking of the technical co-operation granted by a group of eight specialised companies to the project Alfredo Stola stressed that:

"Probably we would have not created the Monotipo 98 without their contributions, and if we had done it without their assistance the outcome would certainly be different. I am very grateful to all of them for the enthusiastic support".
Our experience with them has been a very rewarding exercise into the spirit of "Team Work" by a pool of highly motivated and qualified specialists. It has proved very successful and our company is now looking forward to continue our relationship with them to offer more integrated services to our clientele."

In the early phase a turbocharged 2.4 litre, 5-cylinder engine was considered for a rear mid-ship installation and for few days Alfredo Stola even considered a twin-engined car.
Eventually, in view of the advancement in traction control demonstrated by the Alfa Romeo front wheel drive cars racing in the Italian Superturismo championship (soon to be entered by the new Alfa Romeo 156) and further development at Fiat Auto Corse, the lightest solution of a turbocharged four cylinder engine was preferred and adopted.

It will be interesting to check on the road (and hopefully on the track) how the Monotipo 98 transfers its torque and power to the ground and how it steers. As for grip and handling with its low centre of gravity and light weight matched by immense tyres and extraordinary braking power, it should be absolutely rewarding.