1977 Fiat 131 1600 Rally with upgrades, 1800 cc. Registratio...

Estimate

£7,000 - £9,000

1977 Fiat 131 1600 Rally with upgrades, 1800 cc. Registration number FDV 220T. Chassis number 131 A1 0358982. Engine number TBC.
In 1976, 400 examples of the Fiat 131 Abarth Rally were built for homologation purposes. These cars were built in a cooperation between Fiat, Bertone and Abarth. Bertone took part-completed two door standard bodyshells from the production line in Mirafiori, fitted plastic mudguards front and rear, a plastic bonnet and bootlid and modified the metal structure to accept the rear independent suspension. The cars were fully painted and trimmed and then delivered back to the Fiat special Rivalta plant where they received the Abarth mechanicals. These were for Group Four Rallies, at the same time Fiat competed in Group One (production cars) and in the South African championship 181 were built to compete in local events.
FDV was built by Fiat in Turin during December 1977 and sent out to South Africa for the 1979 season, being registered on the 1st of January 1979. That year’s championship was won by Jannie Kuun with Ben van der Westhuizen as co-driver, in a red 131. The cataloguer has not been able to confirm this whether this was their car but in 2001 Neville Pretorius, a South Africa rally mechanic, bought this car. It was red and he converted it to resemble a South Africa Racing car (painted the correct shade of yellow), this was finished in 2002 and then he sold it on in 2007. The next owner upgraded the engine to 1800 spec with a new 1800 crankshaft, retaining the original cams and new DOHC twin 40 Webbers to it.
In 2012 it was registered to A.W. Matthee of Cape Town and in 2018 our vendor imported it to the UK. It passed it MOT in July 2019 with 46,573 km on the odometer.
With thanks to www.motoprint.co.za for permission to use the period photograph of Kuun's car.
Sold with the V5C, 2019 MOT, South African documents and NOVA documents.