First look at newest Ferrari:They may deny it even exists, but these exclusive photographs show the new Ferrari Dino is well on its way to completion, writes Paddy Comyn
It is a car that Ferrari continues to deny, but rumours about a new Dino just won't go away.
Despite emphatic protestations from Maranello chief Luca di Montezemolo that Ferrari will not be making a smaller, V8-powered car, these exclusive pictures would appear to indicate otherwise.
Perhaps Ferrari are telling the truth and quite simply, like the original Dino, the new entry-level Ferrari will not be adorned with the Ferrari badge. The car, as these shots show, is based on a 599 body and shows a little of what will become the new Dino.
What identifies the test car as a mule for the Dino is the engine sound, or should we say the lack of it. Our spies tell us that it doesn't sound as sharp as an F430, for example.
Dino was a brand of mid-engined, rear-wheel drive sports car produced by Ferrari between 1968 and 1976.
The Dino brand was supposed to be used for cars with engines that had fewer than 12 cylinders, reserving the Ferrari name for the V-12 and flat 12 models, but Ferrari retired the Dino name in 1976 in favour of conventional Ferrari branding.
The Dino name honours the founder, Enzo Ferrari's son, Alfredino "Dino" Ferrari, who died in 1956 at the age of 24 from muscular dystrophy.
Dino, himself an engineer, designed a series of V6 and V8 engines to appear in Grand Prix cars of the 1950s and it was his V6-designed engine that would appear in the first production car to bear his name. In 1966, Ferrari wished to race in Formula 2 using Dino's V6, but the company could not meet the homologation rules that called for 500 production vehicles using the engine.
So Ferrari turned to Fiat to co-produce the front-engined, rear-wheel drive Fiat Dino, and this was followed by the Pininfarina-designed Dino 206 GT and, later, the more powerful 246 GT and GTS, often regarded as one of the most beautiful cars ever made. The more wedge-shaped Dino 308 GT4 followed in 1974, until it became a Ferrari in May of 1976.
The Dino Register has history on over 3,400 of the approximately 4,100 cars made. Tony Curtis famously drove a 246 Dino in the 1970s TV show The Persuaders and ill-fated drummer with The Who, Keith Moon, had one too. Today, you can expect to pay upwards of €100,000 for a good one.
While that vintage Dino had a V6 behind the driver, the new one will be powered by a V8 with 400 bhp. Ferrari will most likely start with a coupé, but expect a Spider later on.
There is a high possibility that Pininfarina will do the design work, with input from former Ferrari design boss Frank Stephenson, who now heads Fiat's Centro Stile operation.
The new Dino will be starting at approximately €110,000 in Europe, but would cost closer to €190,000 here in Ireland.
Insiders are saying that it's possible to sell up to 4,000 Dinos annually once the car gets the green light for production. Such a figure would instantly double Ferrari's yearly production and give the make a whole new group of customers.
Talk is also about the new Dino to be built at the Maserati factory in Modena, a city important to the history of Ferrari, as it is the town where founder Enzo Ferrari was born. Even if Ferrari is still denying the project, we expect to see it on the roads in 2009.