Fiat Dino Coupe
The Dino road cars came to be because of Enzo Ferrari's need to homologate a V6 engine for Formula 2 racing cars. In 1965 the Commission Sportive Internationale de la FIA had drawn up new rules, to be enacted for the 1967 season. F2 engines were required to have no more than six cylinders, and to be derived from a production engine, from a road car homologated in the GT class and produced in at least 500 examples within 12 months. Since a small manufacturer, like Ferrari was in the mid 60s, did not possess the production capacity to reach such quotas, an agreement was signed with Fiat and made public on 1 March 1965: Fiat would produce the 500 engines needed for the homologation, to be installed in a GT car which remained to be specified.
Dino was the nickname of Enzo's son Alfredo Ferrari, who had died in 1956 and was credited with the concept for Ferrari's Formula 2 V6 racing engine, believed to be designed by Vittorio Jano with a peculiar 65° angle between the cylinder banks. In his memory, V6-engined Ferrari sports prototype racing cars had been named Dino since the late 1950s. The conversion of this racing engine for road use and series production was entrusted to the engineer Aurelio Lampredi, who had previously designed several 4-cylinder Ferrari engines. Interviewed in the early 1980s, Lampredi noted that "things didn't work out exactly as Ferrari had foreseen": Enzo Ferrari had counted on building the engines at Maranello, but Fiat's management insisted on taking control of production, to avoid any breaks in the engine supply. The resulting Fiat-built V6 ended up being installed in two very different vehicles: the Fiat Dino, a front-engined grand tourer assembled in Turin by Fiat, and in Ferrari's first series-produced mid-engined sports car, built in Maranello and sold under the newly created Dino marque. Even on the cylinder block casting, the name FIAT was visible which was not in line with the newly created DINO make.
The Fiat Dino was introduced as a 2-seater Spider at the Turin Motor Show in October 1966; a 2+2 Coupé version, built on a 270 mm (10.6 in) longer wheelbase, bowed a few months later at the Geneva Motor Show in March 1967. The two bodies showed very different lines, as they had been designed and were manufactured for Fiat by two different coachbuilders: the Spider by Pininfarina, and the Coupé by Bertone—where it had been sketched out by Giorgetto Giugiaro in 1963 and finished after his departure to Ghia by his replacement, Marcello Gandini. Curiously the Spider type approval identified it as a 2+1 seater.
The car was offered with an all-aluminum DOHC 2.0 L V6, coupled to a 5-speed manual transmission. The same 2.0-litre engine was used in mid-engined, Ferrari-built Dino 206 GT, which was introduced in pre-production form at the 1967 Turin Motor Show and went on sale in 1968. Fiat quoted 160 PS (118 kW; 158 hp) for the Fiat Dino, while in 1967 Ferrari—presenting the first prototype of the Dino 206 GT—claimed 180 hp (130 kW) despite both engines being made by Fiat workers in Turin on the same production line, without any discrimination as to their destination.
Fiat Dino Coupe
The Dino road cars came to be because of Enzo Ferrari's need to homologate a V6 engine for Formula 2 racing cars. In 1965 the Commission Sportive Internationale de la FIA had drawn up new rules, to be enacted for the 1967 season. F2 engines were required to have no more than six cylinders, and to be derived from a production engine, from a road car homologated in the GT class and produced in at least 500 examples within 12 months. Since a small manufacturer, like Ferrari was in the mid 60s, did not possess the production capacity to reach such quotas, an agreement was signed with Fiat and made public on 1 March 1965: Fiat would produce the 500 engines needed for the homologation, to be installed in a GT car which remained to be specified.
Dino was the nickname of Enzo's son Alfredo Ferrari, who had died in 1956 and was credited with the concept for Ferrari's Formula 2 V6 racing engine, believed to be designed by Vittorio Jano with a peculiar 65° angle between the cylinder banks. In his memory, V6-engined Ferrari sports prototype racing cars had been named Dino since the late 1950s. The conversion of this racing engine for road use and series production was entrusted to the engineer Aurelio Lampredi, who had previously designed several 4-cylinder Ferrari engines. Interviewed in the early 1980s, Lampredi noted that "things didn't work out exactly as Ferrari had foreseen": Enzo Ferrari had counted on building the engines at Maranello, but Fiat's management insisted on taking control of production, to avoid any breaks in the engine supply. The resulting Fiat-built V6 ended up being installed in two very different vehicles: the Fiat Dino, a front-engined grand tourer assembled in Turin by Fiat, and in Ferrari's first series-produced mid-engined sports car, built in Maranello and sold under the newly created Dino marque. Even on the cylinder block casting, the name FIAT was visible which was not in line with the newly created DINO make.
The Fiat Dino was introduced as a 2-seater Spider at the Turin Motor Show in October 1966; a 2+2 Coupé version, built on a 270 mm (10.6 in) longer wheelbase, bowed a few months later at the Geneva Motor Show in March 1967. The two bodies showed very different lines, as they had been designed and were manufactured for Fiat by two different coachbuilders: the Spider by Pininfarina, and the Coupé by Bertone—where it had been sketched out by Giorgetto Giugiaro in 1963 and finished after his departure to Ghia by his replacement, Marcello Gandini. Curiously the Spider type approval identified it as a 2+1 seater.
The car was offered with an all-aluminum DOHC 2.0 L V6, coupled to a 5-speed manual transmission. The same 2.0-litre engine was used in mid-engined, Ferrari-built Dino 206 GT, which was introduced in pre-production form at the 1967 Turin Motor Show and went on sale in 1968. Fiat quoted 160 PS (118 kW; 158 hp) for the Fiat Dino, while in 1967 Ferrari—presenting the first prototype of the Dino 206 GT—claimed 180 hp (130 kW) despite both engines being made by Fiat workers in Turin on the same production line, without any discrimination as to their destination.