Abarth & C was founded by Carlo Abarth in 1949, initially offering exhausts for cars and then tuning kits. Abarth began creating cars and formed a close alliance with FIAT. This resulted in a whole string of cars badged as Fiat-Abarths, usually reworked Fiat models. Abarth was incredibly successful in motorsport with ten world records, 133 international records and over 10,000 race wins. On Carlo's retirement FIAT bought Abarth in July 1971, although gradually ceased operations apart from a few special models offering an Abarth trim level. However, within FIAT there was a desire to reintroduce the Abarth name and in 2005 Abarth was relaunched as a standalone brand once more, while paying tribute to its heritage and considerable legacy. From 2007, Abarth-badged versions of the Nuovo 500 began appearing as either Abarth 595s or Abarth 695s and since then the company has unveiled at least one ultra special limited edition model per year until 2024. Collaborations with the likes of Ferrari, Maserati and Yamaha were produced often in very small numbers and these have become highly sought after and extremely desirable.

Respected automotive journalist Steve Hole documents the myriad modern-day Abarths with a fascinating selection of images and valuable insights.