Still waiting for that baby Ferrari to come along? This may be as close as you'll get. Confirming earlier reports, Fiat's Abarth and Ferrari subsidiaries have gotten together to collaborate on a special 500 to honor Maranello. We first heard about a special Ferrari edition 500 last year when we were in Italy test driving the new Alfa MiTo. But while the previous 500 created for Ferrari was used solely as a courtesy car for Ferrari owners bringing in their cars for service, this new Frankfurt-bound special edition will actually be available for purchase by the general public.
Called the 695 Tributo Ferrari, the special Cinquecento packs a 1.4-liter 16-valve turbo four tuned by Abarth and Ferrari engineers to produce over 180 horsepower, snorting through a variable exhaust system and mated to a paddle-shift automated manual transmission. 17-inch rims crowd the little wheel wells, mounted to a sport-tuned suspension and packing 284mm Brembo brake discs.
The most attention-getting detail, of course, is the paint scheme, decked out in Scuderia Red with Racing Grey stripes to mimick the outgoing 430 Scuderia. All we've got on the interior so far is that Jaeger has been commissioned to make the special instruments and Sabelt provides the bucket seats (probably similar to the ones we reported on recently).
This isn't the first time the Prancing Horse and the Scorpion marques have come together, Fiat pointing to the 1953 Ferrari 166/250 MM Abarth for reference. And whether this proves to be more of a marketing ploy or a serious set of wheels remains to be seen, but it's got to be better than the Michael Schumacher edition Fiat Stilo from a few years ago. For our part, we wouldn't mind pitting this against the upcoming Toyota iQ-based Aston Martin Cygnet to determine who'll be king of the exotic-branded superminis. Check it out in the press release after the jump and images in the hi-res gallery below.
