Abarth’s love of special editions will continue into its electric era

New models, new powertrains, same old Abarth. Well, it’d certainly seem that way, because its product boss Guillaume Clerc has confirmed that it’ll continue its love of special editions with limited-run versions of the recently launched 500e and very recently launched 600e.

“It’s part of the soul of Abarth,” said Clerc. “A big portion of our customers are completely crazy about the brand, and they like to have these special series cars.

“For now, it is too early [to say what editions they will be]. First, we want to properly launch the 600e. We are focusing on the car as it is with the Scorpionissima, which in a way is already a kind of special edition because it is the launch edition. But yes, in the midterm we will continue to animate the cars as we used to do in the past.”

You’ll be well aware that Abarth loved to release special editions of the previous 595 and 695, although name all of them off the top of your head and you’ll probably be asked to leave the dinner party. Abarth even released a special 695 earlier this year to celebrate the company’s 75th anniversary, despite its all-electric 500e already being on-sale.

The 600e Scorpionissima will be limited to just 1,949 units. Compared to the standard car it gets more power, an artificial sound generator, bigger brakes and a Torsen limited-slip diff, so expect all of those bits to go onto another special 600e in the near future.

But what about any extra tech to set those future special editions apart from the cars they’re based on? Well, Abarth has been testing a fake paddleshift system like the one deployed on the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N.

“We talked about it and we tested some opportunities,” said Abarth marketing boss Francesco Morosini. “Honestly in an ideal world we would have put everything inside the 600e. Obviously the world is not ideal so we had to make a trade-off and when the time came to decide we thought it would be best to focus on the features that improved performance.

"I don’t want to say that it’s not nice, the paddleshift, because that wouldn’t be telling the truth, but we decided to invest in parts like the brakes, the differential and the setup to go faster at the Nürburgring, instead of investing in play. But again, I don’t want to say that it would not have been nice to add the play.”