1:64 Fiat Abarth 595 LB-Works x Abas Works 2024 Grey

The smallest car with wide flanks

The Fiat 595 in Abarth guise is a classic Italian hot hatch: a short wheelbase, a tall body and an engine that sounds louder than its size would suggest. To add it a widened body from a workshop that otherwise builds them for supercars is an exaggeration and at the same time a good joke. The result looks like a model of a car on top of itself, because the wheels come out beyond the original outline and the proportions shift into a comic-book register.

Two workshops working together

The designation in the name joins two names from the world of conversions, which in this trade is a common way for limited runs of body kits to come about. The gray rendition is restrained against the colorful versions and lets the shapes come out, above all the transition between the flare and the original fender.

Why it is worth having in a collection

In a display case full of low coupes a tall small car works as a moment of relief and breaks the case up proportionally, so that the collection does not look uniform. The model comes finished, painted and shod on separate wheels. Given how short the body is, the small details sit more densely together on it and the cleanness of the printing has a greater bearing on the final impression than on big cars. Handle it as a display-case piece.

An Italian base under a foreign body

The original shape is not lost under the flares. The tall roof, the short overhang and the typical outline of the rear end are kept, so the car stays recognizable even to someone who does not follow conversions and knows only the production version.