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Abarth 124 Spider Sets Crazy Guinness World Record for Fastest Figure of Eight

If you can think of it, then the Guinness Book of World Records has a place for it in its pages. Even if it’s a useless, crazy, everyone-will-forget-about-it-the-very-next-day type of record.
Alastair Moffatt and the Abarth 124 Spider 1 photo
Photo: Fiat
Back in July, unknown to the world, stunt driver Alastair Moffatt took a completely standard Abarth 124 Spider to the Chateau Impney Hill Climb for a spin. And since Moffatt is renowned for crazy stunts when it comes to parallel parking or 360 degrees circles on the tarmac, it was no ordinary spin.

There were, in fact, three 124 Spiders involved in the record attempt. One was being driven by Moffatt, while the other two acted as traffic cones of some type. Moffatt’s job? To do figures of eight between the other two cars, as fast as possible, as many times as possible.

And so he did. When the smoke cleared, the Guinness representatives found the diver/car combo managed to spin around, doing figures of eight between the two cars five times, in only 45.66 seconds. Good enough to land the two the record.

“It’s wonderful to have set this record! Finding the right vehicle is increasingly important for these record attempts, so the lightweight, agility and rear wheel drive of the Abarth 124 spider made it the perfect choice,” Moffatt said on Tuesday, a few months after the achievement slipped unnoticed.

This “right vehicle” for the job is powered by a 1.4 MultiAir Turbo engine that develops 170 hp and can reach 62 mph in 6.8 seconds, while the maximum speed is rated at 144 mph (232 kph). The car is based on the reborn Fiat 124 and was introduced for model year 2017 after been tweaked by the Abarth Racing team.

Taking advantage of the announcement, the British branch of Fiat detailed a financing plan for those willing to buy the car. More details can be found in the document attached below.
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About the author: Daniel Patrascu
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Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies.
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