The Dino: Fiat 500's beefy big brother

Most cars are born either to fill a market gap, to replace a predecessor, or as a brand experiment to test uncharted waters in the field of automotive engineering. But the Fiat Dino really don't fit into any one of those categories.

You'd think that it would fit just perfectly in the last one, as a brand experiment. But you'd be wrong. Fiat did lots of nice, big, sporty coupés before this one. The 1500 Pininfarina, the 2300, the 1600, and later on, the 124 coupé. None with the power of the Dino, but still nice driver's cars. No, there was something else entirely that brought this sweet GT to life. And, as many other nice automotive stories, this one starts on the race track.

History has shown us again and again that Ferrari is all about racing. The street cars they've made since their start in the late forties were merely a source of income, a way to finance the family's need for speed. But the street cars didn't benefit the racing just by cash flow. They were also needed for homologation. 

Ferrari built several six- and eight cylinder engines for racing purposes during the fifties. This line of small-bore, high-output engines has popularly been credited to Alfredo Ferrari, Enzo's son, nicknamed "Dino". He lost his life to a muscular disease in 1956. But his name would live on in different ways.

For the 1967 season, Ferrari wanted to participate in Formula 2 with a car equipped with the Dino V6 engine. However, to meet the requirements set by the homologation rules, 500 street cars with a similar engine had to be built and sold. Even by launching the all-new Dino 206, Ferrari could not meet these numbers themselves.That's when they had a chat with Fiat. If they would put the Dino engine in a Fiat production car, Ferrari would meet the requirements and could go racing in Formula 2. And Fiat would get a Ferrari-engined production car. A classic win/win-situation...

The styling was done by Bertone, and as you can see, it was done properly. Interestingly, the rear lights are the same as the ones found on the Lamborghini Miura...

The early models were equipped with a 2,0 litre engine, identical to the unit found in the mid-engined "Ferrari" Dino 206. Fiat quoted the power output at 160 horsepower. Ferrari, on the other hand, claimed 180 horsepower from the same engine. There were no modifications at all, the engines were simply lifted from the Fiat assembly line and bolted to the Dino 206. So if you own a Dino 206, you'll have to live with the fact that 20 of those horses never existed on anything but paper.

Later on, the 2,0 litre engine was replaced by a bigger 2,4 litre unit. This actually produced the 180 horses Ferrari claimed for the previous engine. Assembly was now taking place at Ferrari's Maranello plant, strengthening the prancing horse link just a bit more. The car seen on these pictures, is one of those - a 1972 Fiat Dino 2400 Coupé. 

Since this car is such a beautiful thing to behold, both on the outside and on the inside, I will stop writing now and just let the pictures speak for themselves. Enjoy!