Driver Magazine - Issue 1 Dec 24 (3) - Flipbook - Page 16
To mark his son9s important involvement in the company, as well as his
deep love, adoration, and respect for his son, the commandetore – Enzo –
would name the companies smaller, experimental and racing engines
8Dino9 in honour of this talented and brilliant young man.
The 8Dino9 would be both V6 and V89s for the company to use in mainly
racing cars, and later road cars, beginning most notably in 1957 with the
Dino 156 Formula 2 car and would go on until 1976 most famously adorning
the front of this car, the iconic 246.
The car now known as the 8Dino9 would be launched in 1968 as a rival to the
already hugely successful Porsche 911. The Dino name would actually be its
own marque, used to differentiate these smaller, agile and nimble road
cars from Ferrari9s most expensive and complicated V129s. It was Enzo9s
insistence that this brand should never be seen as the 8cheaper9 option.
It9s at this point that the connection between the Dino name and one of
the largest automotive corporations needs to be laid out as this is where
many people cross over the stories in the lineage of the Dino.
In the mid-1960s, with new homologation rules for motorsport, Ferrari was
desperately trying to find a way to be allowed to run its new Formula 2 V6
in the Dino 166. However, the rules stated that 500 units had to be made
which used the 2-litre V6. For Ferrari, that wasn9t an option. In that time
period, the company were producing a total of 750-units across both the
road and motorsports departments. To go some ways to make up this
number, Ferrari had decided that the engine would be used in a road car
but we9ll come back to that in a bit. Ferrari would turn to the iconic
figurehead of Fiat for help – the charismatic empresario Gianni Agnelli.
Agnelli and Ferrari reached an agreement whereby Fiat would use this 2litre V6 for a relatively inexpensive sports coupe and spider called the 8Fiat
Dino9 thus allowing Ferrari to produce the 500 required units quicker and
meet the FIA9s regulation.
In the Fiat version, the engine would retain the same displacement and
valvetrain but would be a wet sump system, meaning the oil was selfcontained within the engine itself and unlike the 206/246, the engine
would be mounted conventionally at the front.
The conversion of the engines from an out-and-out motorsport unit, the
206 SP/S engine, to a road capable set up would be entrusted by Fiat to the
great Aurelio Lampredi, who had worked closely with Ferrari on many
famous engines.
Originally, Ferrari had wanted to build the engines at Maranello but due to
production demands, the assembly of the engines would be done by Fiat
in Turin to keep up with the production demand for the Fiat Dino Coupe9s
and Spider and also allow for better final quality control however Ferrari
would ensure that the engines were built to their exacting specifications
and then taken back to Maranello to be fitted to the 206 and 2469s. The
engine would later find its way into powering the Fiat Dino 2400 as well as
the bedroom poster worthy Lancia Stratos rally car.
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