I was walking across the lawn at the 2013 Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance, looking at row upon row of fantastically restored automobiles, when I was stopped in my tracks by a car that was so small, I could almost fit it into my pocket.
It was two-toned—aqua green and white—and it was breathtaking. I had to find out more about this terrific little car.
I met the owner, Elad Shraga, who was quite proud of his barn-find. The car was a 1955 Abarth 208 Spyder, an ideally proportioned two-seat roadster with a decidedly 1950s style.
When its designer, Carlo Abarth, left the Cisitalia car company in 1949, he took with him the muffler division and all the company’s racing technology. He started manufacturing Abarth mufflers for European cars, which were required accessories for any dyed-in-the-wool sports car enthusiast in the 1950s and 1960s. No MGA, Alfa Romeo, or Austin Healey would have been complete during that time without the twin chrome-tipped Abarth tailpipes in the back of the car.
But by 1954, he wanted to produce his own car based around the 1,100 cc Fiat engine. He believed that with an aluminum body, the car might be quite competitive. He decided to introduce three cars, probably designed by Giovanni Michelotti: a racing Spyder (convertible); a coupe; and a street Spyder.
The cars were displayed at the 1955 Turin show in Italy. Then they were imported to the United States, but the public had no use for the coupe or the street Spyder—only the racecar mattered. So the threesome was broken up and sold off.
Elad Shraga’s Abarth Spider is a one of a kind roadster. Built for the 1955 Turin Auto Show, it never excited the public the way the racing version had. So the car was sold to the DuPont family then disappeared for a number of years. ELAD SHRAGA
The coupe spent decades in the Midwest and now resides in Holland.
The street Spyder was sold to the DuPont family, who had a sizable collection. They kept the car until the late 1960s. The family gave the car to their airplane mechanic, who crashed it in 1982. He parked the car, and it was not seen again until he connected with Shraga in 2006. The owner made a mention on an Abarth website that he owned #005, which got Shraga’s attention (but apparently nobody else’s).
After much Internet research, Shraga found the car under a workbench in Queens, New York. The body and mechanicals have been restored, but the original interior has been retained. ELAD SHRAGA
“It’s a family heirloom—I’ll never sell,” was the owner’s response to Shraga’s inquiries. Shraga needed to own that car, however, because he already owned the sister racing Spyder, which had shared the show stand with the street Spyder at the 1955 Turin show.
Two years later, the former owner relented, and Shraga was able to purchase the car. When he purchased the vehicle, he was a resident of New York City; now he resides outside Tel Aviv, Israel. When he first contacted the former owner, he was shocked to learn the car had been stored under a workbench in the New York suburb of Queens for decades.
“This Spyder is fascinating,” Shraga says. “It’s like a time capsule. It still has 1955 tires on it!” After he bought it, a body shop in Connecticut named Draggone Restorations restored the body and mechanics, but Shraga decided to leave the vintage interior alone.
“I am so lucky to own two Abarths that were hidden for 40 years,” he says, and “it pays to troll the Internet.”
Especially in the barn-find business.