Jean-Claude Andruet's hillclimb Alpine A364 turbo

[allenbrown]

One of the more unusual cars to compete the 1972 European hill climb series was Jean-Claude Andruet's Alpine A364, a car built for that year's 1600cc F3. Andruet appears first at Ampus in March finihsing an impressive third. Autosprint says:

Andruet, la cui Alpine di F3 aveva 100 HP in meno di una F2 o di una Fiat Abarth.

I can't make head or tail of that sentence. F2? Fiat Abarth? What are they talking about? Both my English-Italian dictionary and google translate have failed me.

Later in the season, Andruet has a supercharged 1600cc engine at Mont Ventoux in June and then a supercharged 1800cc engine at Freiburg-Schauinsland in August.

Was this Alpine's first supercharging experiment?

Allen

[fausto]

Quote:
Andruet, la cui Alpine di F3 aveva 100 HP in meno di una F2 o di una Fiat Abarth.

translation:
...Andruet, whose F.3 Alpine had 100 HP less than a F.2 or a Fiat Abarth...

I suppose they say Fiat Abarth but they refer to the Abarth 2 litres sportscars, re: the F.3 Alpine it'd be that it was run (in the hillclimbs) without any restrictor, a la formula libre...

[allenbrown]

Thanks fausto - it's obvious once you explain it

Reading Autosprint in 1972 about Abarths is quite confusing as Fiat had just bought Abarth. When I see "Fiat-Abarth 2000" I'm not sure if that's an Abarth 2000 or a Fiat 2000 modified by Abarth. How much Fiat is in a "Fiat Abarth 2000".

There are also Fiat-Abarth 3000s, Abarth Osella 3000s, Abarth 3000s, Fiat-Abarth 1300s, Abarth 1300s and so on, filling many of the class results.

Allen

[Frank de Jong]

There won't be much Fiat in a Fiat-Abarth 2000 - there was no Fiat 2000 at the time, nor a 1300. The cars you mention are (in 1972) group 5 sportscars or group 6 prototypes.
I'm sure I heard the story of the supercharged A364 before...

[allenbrown]

Thanks Frank. You are just the man I need to understand all this. As you know, I rarely try to deal with anything with more than one seat

Italian racing in 1972 had G1, G2, G4 and then G5-7 (the rarer G8 vetture corsa being the F850 national category, FF, F3 and the occasional formula libra).

With G5-7 chucked in together, it's hard to see what's what. At Cesano for example, the 1300cc class has an "Abarth O" (Abarth Osella presumably) 3rd and a Fiat Abarth 4th. There are also a pair of "Fiat A" (Fiat Abarths presumably) in the 1000cc G5-7 class. At Trento, G5 and G7 are reported separately and there are 1000cc Fiat-Abarths in G5 and in G7!

There are also Fiat-Abarths 1st, 2nd and 3rd in G4 in the 1000cc class and dominating the 1000cc, 850cc, 700cc and 600cc classes in G2. Are all these cars Abarth-tuned Fiats?

I'm just trying to distinguish between something built by Abarth but now owned by Fiat and something built by Fiat and modified by Abarth. Maybe I'm trying too hard

[Frank de Jong]

Abarth did make group 7 cars. Furthermore, it's near impossible to distinguish Abarths without pictures since some with the same name are totaly different and vice-versa. Some years ago, I tried, see http://www.gaffersports.com/motorspo...rth/abarth.php but there will be errors.
In general, group 1-4 Abarth cars are derived from Fiats (though they tuned Simca's in the early 60's as well); 850 and 1000 cc group 2 is Fiat-600 derived (Abarth did make 850-derived cars but these were hardly raced), 600 and 700 cc are Fiat 500 derived, 1000 cc GT wil be a Fiat 850 coupé base.