Fiat names its fastest cars Abarth, meet the man behind that name

[MUSIC] So this is an Abarth 500. It's a fast Fiat 500. But what about the Abarth name? Where did that all come from? Some people may think, it's just a marketing name and all that [INAUDIBLE]. As is ever the case with this things. It isn't just a marketing name. There was a man called Aboth and he liked making stuff go really fast. [MUSIC]. [INAUDIBLE] Was born in Austria and later moving to Italy and becoming a naturalized Italian. So he changed his name to Carlo, the Italian version of his name. During his teens, he worked for a coach builder, Castagna. Now, you are gonna have to bear with me on some of my Italian pronunciation. I'm not terribly good at it. But while he was Working or them, he built motorcycle and push [UNKNOWN] chassis. In fact, shortly after his time there, he went back to Austria to race motorcycles. He did a lot of motor sport over his years. But various known crashes kind of halted that competition career for him. Still, after the second world war, he moved back to Italy and set up a company with some fairly heavy hitters. A company that would be known as Cisitalia. Cisitalia. [MUSIC] The cars that Cisitalia made were brilliant. But in the late 40s, the company went under. It was then that [UNKNOWN] found his time to strike, you see? He then set up Abarth&C out of, basically, the ashes of Cisitalia. He continued to develop some of the racecars they've made and also developed some of his own stuff. On top of that, some performance bits for cars you could buy. For example, the Fiat. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] In 1952, Abarth released the 1500 Biposto. A beautiful car, absolutely stunning, and it was based on Fiat mechanical bids. Now, Raul Abarth had a relationship with Fiat before then, it was only after the 1500 Biposto that they were super mega double best pals. Little while later in the 70s Fiat bought Abath and [UNKNOWN]. Eventually made it its racing division, turning normal cars into race winners, sticking people on podiums, which is pretty cool. In the late 70s, [UNKNOWN] himself passed away. A couple years later, [UNKNOWN] ceased to be. Fear kind of consolidated all of its race teams under one name, and [UNKNOWN] seemed lost to the world. Occasionally, he used On special editions of cars. [MUSIC] That said, special editions of cars such as the Fiat Stilo Abarth. Yeah, anyone remember that? Nah, me either, not at all. However, in 2007, Abarth NC Carlo's company came back into being. It was essentially Fiat's very own M division, designed to make fast Fiats. And that is how we've ended up in a 500 Abarth, an Abarth 500 today, because of a man called Carl. He liked to make cars that go really fast.