Founded in Turin in 1949 by Carlo Abarth and Armando Scagliarini. Abarth had been involved with Cisitalia that had been trying to build a revolutionary four wheel drive racing car to Ferdinand Porsche designs. This project collapsed when Porsche was arrested for wartime collaboration and had to sell Cisitalia to get released. Abarth picked up the Cisitalia pieces and formed Abarth with the Scorpion on his badge because it was his star sign. Production Abarth started with the launch of the Fiat 600 in 1955 which Abarth tuned and enlarged the engine and gave the car a Zagato body. In 1958 Abarth turned his attention to the Fiat 500, producing a car that retained the body and the standard engine size, but doubled the power. As new Fiat models were launched, Abarth did his magic on them and racing trophies mounted up. Simca joined the Abarth world with Abarth-Simca cars. In 1971 Abarth joined the Fiat Group.