Today’s the day the “Tour of Europe in 1949 Hours” restarts from Turin. The project is an exciting European tour on board the Abarth 695 70° Anniversario, on a multi-stage route of around 3,700 km, from the Netherlands to Portugal. We’re restarting the powerful engine of the limited edition created to celebrate the 70th birthday of the Scorpion brand, after the prolonged pit stop over the last few months due to the lockdown. It’s now ready to get back on the road for the “Tour of Europe in 1949 Hours”, a celebration of the Scorpion brand’s history, together with a love for challenge and the constant search for performance.
Luca Napolitano, Head of EMEA Fiat & Abarth Brands, stated: “The restart of our European journey is another positive message of getting back to normal. We’ll share feelings and passion with the nearly 130,000 fans in the Abarth community and more than 80 clubs that will bear witness to and support the tour. The enthusiasm for our brand, and especially for the Abarth 695 70° Anniversario special series, is also confirmed by its commercial success: more than half of the 1,949 limited edition models have already been sold”.
After starting in late February from the Dutch village of Lijnden, about 10 km from Amsterdam, the adrenaline-fueled Abarth 695 70° Anniversario first reached Belgium, then arrived in Germany. We had to stop there due to the lockdown, when the special series returned to Turin – the city of Abarth’s first office, which remains the headquarters of the Scorpion brand and the Heritage Hub, housing some of the most important cars produced by Abarth throughout its history.
The capital of Piedmont is about to witness the Abarth 695 70° Anniversario restarting its engines, with their powerful, bold ‘roar’, enhanced even further by the “Record Monza Attivo” exhaust system. The car’s special feature is an active valve – controlled by the Sport button on the dashboard, enabling the driver to choose between a “gentleman driver” sound and a darker, feistier, typically Abarth roar.
From Turin, the special series will head for the French Riviera, then to Spain, via Barcelona and Madrid, to end up in Lisbon, the charming capital of Portugal. In total, the “Tour of Europe in 1949 Hours” will run for exactly that amount of time – 1,949 hours – a clear tribute to the year the brand was founded and the number of Abarth 695 70° Anniversario units made. 1,949 hours is just over 80 days, much like the adventure recounted by Jules Verne in his Around the World in Eighty Days.
