Fiat 124 Abarth Rally
Why 3.0: Fiat built 1,013 examples of this flared, hardtopped 124 Spider between 1972 and 1975 purely to satisfy FIA Group 4 homologation — more than double the 500 the rules actually required. Independent rear suspension unique to this model, a limited-slip diff and a 128-hp twin-cam four (170 hp in full works rally trim) made it a genuine giant-killer before the 131 Abarth took over Fiat's works program; today it's a six-figure collector piece that rarely gets driven the way it was built to be.
Layout
Natural habitat
Ride comfort
Market value
Median asking price, good condition · €6k (1972) → €120k (2026), trending up · illustrative data
Child seats · ISOFIX
Built before ISOFIX existed, so there are no anchor points at all. A child seat here is a seatbelt installation in the only passenger seat there is.
Derived from production years and seating layout, not a per-car source. ISOFIX was standardised as ISO 13216 in 1997, required on new EU model types from 2011 and on all new EU cars from 2014.
The long version
The 124 Sport Spider was already a competent small roadster when Abarth got hold of it, but competent wasn't what FIA Group 4 homologation demanded — it demanded 500 identical production examples with genuine competition hardware, and Fiat built more than double that. The Rally Stradale wore flared glassfibre wheelarches, a lift-off hardtop and an internal roll bar, but the real engineering was underneath: independent rear suspension by MacPherson struts, unique to this model, replaced the standard car's live axle, and a limited-slip differential went where none had gone before on a 124. The 1.8-liter twin-cam made a genuinely quick 128 hp in road trim and up to 170 hp in the works rally cars that campaigned internationally through the mid-1970s before Fiat handed the works program to the 131 Abarth. Exactly 1,013 were built by 1975 — Group 4 only required 500, but demand from privateer racers kept the line running — and for decades afterward this was simply an old, slightly rare Fiat, cheap enough that survival depended on nobody caring enough to restore it properly. The homologation-hero market that transformed the 131 Abarth's values eventually found the 124 Rally too: clean Stradale examples now clear well into six figures, trailered to historic rally regularity events rather than daily-driven the way most of the 1,013 originally were sold to be.