Tales
Tale 1
The tale of this edition is one of the Dino engine, not the history, which you surely know, but an imagined hypothetical version with the breath of the past fifty years.
Perhaps Ferrari did not make a gift "to the Lancia Team of an engine designed by his son Dino, but returned it to its rightful owners!!! Before Vittorio Jano entered in Ferrari, but much earlier, when he was at Lancia, he had supervised the design of the V 6-cylinder which then would be evolved in the engines of the various Aurelia versions.
It is logical to assume that when Ferrari designed the first 6-cylinder for the 1500 cc formula 2, although the participation of Dino Ferrari in the project was crucial, the supervision of the Head of design, the above Vittorio Jano did certainly make a difference.
Jano could not surely forget the experience in Lancia, and free from the constraints of mass production, could develop the V6 to the best of his ability, with two axes in the head cam for each bank, and proper carburetion.
As it is well known by all those who have or have had the pleasure of driving a car with this engine (Dino Ferrari, Fiat Dino and Lancia Stratos), the Dino engine is truly spectacular.
It was designed fifty years ago, and its top evolution is forty years old. Yet, still now it has characteristics of flexibility, torque and power to be able to compete successfully with the most sophisticated engines, Italian and foreigners, of the latest generation.
The experience of driving a Stratos with an engine that could safely run in city traffic, have a minimum in the 500 laps and then shoot a couple amazing and almost constant from 3000 to 8000 rpm is still for me an incredible pleasure.
All this, if it had been only developed by Dino Ferrari, would be more than a miracle. If, however, behind it there had been the experience of a great designer of engines, it would be the exceptional success that there had been and that there was still.
Unfortunately, Fiat, after the unhappy experience of 130 (but not due to fault of the engine) has not done of this engine the parent engine of medium and high range, a great opportunity lost, in my opinion.
What could a medium sports car give today, with an engine derived from Dino, made with materials developed to date, with 4 valves per cylinder (or better 3), sequential injection and all other electronic inventions ... I dream it at night.