Officine 83: New Abarth HQ leaves room for small-run specialty cars

Fiat has been putting a lot of money and energy into the rejuvenation of the Abarth brand as its own in-house racing and tuning division. Now preparing to unveil its second model, the Fiat 500 Abarth, at the fast-approaching Geneva show, Abarth also cut the ribbon on its new headquarters. Called Officine 83, Abarth has set up shop in the old Mirafiori engineering plant, adjacent to Fiat's design, experimental construction and engineering departments.

The facility houses the racing team, the competition vehicles department and the road car unit, with the technical and design offices next to the workshops and the business offices upstairs. The interesting part, however, is not what Officine 83 includes, but rather space they left empty, earmarked for a future workshop to produce small runs of specialty vehicles. Of course any inference over what could be built there would be nothing more than pure speculation at this point, but the presence of that open space lends credit to previous reports that Abarth could get its own unique models. With sister-brand Alfa Romeo – now operated by the same chief executive – readying a 500-car run of the sumptuous 8C Spider, and Lancia rumored to get its own version, the idea of a limited-run halo model for Abarth is about as tantalizing as it gets.

Thats a real workshop. Love to work there.

Looks fantasic and an excellent place to build these special models. Would be well worth a visit.

Grrr I want a GP Abarth SS goddamn it .

me toooooo

Might go over there on a visit / hoiliday and nick one

Why not. The Italians are usually pretty receptive to visitors. Just bear in mind the Italian system of justice is different from ours and their prisons are a bit, how can I put this, Victorian; and they take people nicking their national treasures quite seriously.

Me and the wife are going to Italy for a coupe of weeks in August. Will have to try and convince the missus to go for a quick look see.

Sweet don't forget the camera try and get some high res ones of the security system(s)

wonder if they'd make a black Abarth GP for me?

wonder how rich you are

looks fancier than ferraris current front of house stuff! well, that WAS fancy, in 1986


That garage ain't huge, but it is minty fresh clean! Bit like ford Msport, only everything there is white and grey! not an oil stain or nothing I would give limbs to work in there!

They do it in Black already. I want them to put an S2000 rally bodykit on mine.

you wanna see the ascari workshops

abarth ss will seem like a girly shopping car compared to the mi.to gta, wait and see