Created by Petrolheads, for Petrolheads

Comes with all the gadgets: revolving number plates, bullet screen, ejection seat, headlight machine guns, and wheel blades. Also includes Bond and Oddjob.

Have just completed the North Coast 500 in the Stevilo with some village friends. Amazing trip. Stayed in Glasgow, Sleat (Isle of Skye), Torridon, Ullapool, Tongue, Castle of Mey, Dornoch, Inverness and Glen Coe along the way. Will be going back with the boys and doing it in sports cars next year.

So we went a tuning today. JF Automotive (specialist Abarth tuners) got hold of my car for the afternoon and fitted her with a Stage 1 tune. My Abarth Turismo at stock was 165bhp and 230Nm torque. Following a ECU + software upgrade she is now pushing 198bhp and 330Nm torque. The car was dyno run before and after the upgrade. The improvement in performance and fuel economy is striking to say the least. A further part of the process was the fitting of a Forge Motorsport cold induction kit with blue details (pic below). I also fitted 15mm spacers to the back wheels and 13mm to the front – so she feels more planted under drive, acceleration and braking. To finish her off I had some new wing mirror caps sprayed Campovolo grey and attached. Couple these changes with the new Magneti Marelli valved exhaust and we have one tasteful but faster than an Abarth Essesse OEM+ car.

Out with the OME and in with a new Magneti Marelli Sinfonia valved exhaust. Looks awesome and sounds way better. Still some work to be done, I’m going to swap out the 400 cell cat for a 200 cell unit and then sort out the breathing around the turbo. By the time we have done all of that we should be pushing out around 190bhp which is 10bph more than the Esssesse.

Here is the sh*t exhaust the Abarth came with. Sounded terrible!

I found these pictures (yes taken with a camera) of my first Lotus.

Invited down to be one of the cars on display 🙂