FIAT has relaunched one of the motor industry's legendary performance and sporting car brands with the unveiling of the new Grande Punto Abarth.

This is set to be the first of a new range of high performance and sporting Fiats featuring the famed Scorpion badge and could be with UK drivers by the end of the year.

Fiat set the Abarth division of the company loose last year to run its own racing and rally teams, starting with the Grande Punto Abarth S2000, which won both the Italian and European Rally Championship titles.

This experience is now being put into its road cars starting with the Grande Punto Abarth which is equipped with a 1.4 Turbo petrol engine that delivers 150bhp (boosted to 155bhp by adopting 98 RON petrol) which, with an aftermarket booster kit, can be increased to 180bhp - almost three times that of the entry level Punto. It features drive-by-wire accelerator control, a Garrett turbocharger and a 6-speed gearbox.

Second model in the Abarth line-up is likely to be the new Fiat 500 with others in the range to follow.

As well as various states of tune Abarth models will feature special body kits including distinctive mesh grilles and wheel arch extensions, wider front and rear wings and in the case of the Punto 17 inch aluminium alloy wheels.

On the forthcoming Fiat Grande Punto the distinctive Abarth racing stripe has been rendered with LED tiles, while the new scorpion logo is picked out in large, three-dimensional elements in polished, satin-effect aluminium.

Originally born in Vienna in 1908 Karl Abarth was twenty when he won his first races on a Thun motorcycle and the following year he built his first motorcycle with the Abarth trademark. In 1945 he moved to Italy and became Carlo Abarth, founding his own company in 1949, - his first car being a 204 A Roadster, derived from a Fiat 1100, which immediately won the Italian 1100 Sport Championship and the Formula 2 title.

Abarth's success reached its peak in the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s with a string of successes in rallying and road racing until in 1971 it became part of Fiat Auto.