Baby dragons

Lighting up the Fiat 500 with extra performance only increased the fun, as the Giannini 500TV and Abarth 695 SS demonstrate

- RICHARD HESELTINE

The day is finished, and so is our ability to complete sentences. It's partly because we simply can't stop laughing. It's hard not to when you are scorching down back-roads in a brace of Italian rarities, the sort of competition-inspired machines that prompt coos of approval from the cognoscenti. As of right now, we are marvelling at how the Abarth 695 SS ahead of us stays attached to the road in much the same way as a well-chucked stone skims across water. But its driver doesn't appear to have noticed. He has clearly lost his mind, but not his nerve.

As such, we try to follow suit, girding our Giannini 500TV and remaining in close proximity as we attack another corner. Momentum is key. Lose it and you need to coax and cajole until you are back up to speed again: a relative term when you have less than 30bhp at your disposal. But that isn't really the point here. The sense of speed is all-encompassing, not least in the twisty stuff. You don't need to slow down for corners, you merely keep your right foot buried in the bulkhead, all the while feeling strangely invincible.

It is a battle of the rowdy tiddlers, which raged in Italy way back when, as these storied marques went to war. One effectively defined the aftermarket and became one of the great Italian brands in the process; the other was its fiercest rival for a spell, before its star faded. But then it was always going to be tough for Giannini, given that Abarth had been anointed by Fiat as its go-faster partner of choice as far back as 1958.