CURIOSITIES ABOUT
DINO GT4
Dino 308 gt4 is a very important Ferrari model in the history of the "Cavallino" of Maranello, even though it hadn't the same success of other models.
In this section I want to stress some curiosities about this car, which make this vehicle a milestone of the Ferrari production.
The first curiosity is about the heart of the car, that is the engine. For the first time in Maranello a serial car had been equipped with a 8 crushing rolls engine. This choice gave a good example for the later vehicles until today with the Californian Ferrari.
Another curiosity is the chassis-body. As I sad before this is the first and last time a Ferrari model's chassis-body is the result of the work of Bertone, who had never collaborated with the car manufecturer Ferrari for a serial car before. By contrast the production of its chassis-body was entrusted to the modenese etablishment of Scaglietti.
Another very important peculiarity, in my opinion, is that the Dino 308 gt4 was the first car which had been given on trial to a car magazine. We are talking about the magazine called "Quattroruote" (four wheels) and the tester was an outstanding pilot, Emerson Fittipaldi, F1 champion in the same year. For the occasion, the article of "Quattroruote" of january 1975 began with a declaration from the car manufecturer Ferrari: "We have never given a car on trial before". We can easily understand how extraordinary the event was. The gt4 had been tested on the Mugello racetrack and also turned up by Fittipaldi who, at the end of the race, said: "I can say that the Dino is one of the best car I have ever tested". PHOTO
Another curiosity still about engine is revealed by Marcello Gandini who, during an interwiew granted to a website called "stratosmania", asserted that the Dino gt4 should initially have had a 6 crushing rolls engine like the Dino 206/246. This assertion gave another possible justification about the car name, because the 6 crushing rolls engine had been projected by Alfredo Ferrari, called Dino, son of Enzo Ferrari, prematurely dead.
The last curiosity is not about the engine. Often a car becomes famous thanks to a filmic or telivision apparition. For example Magnum P.I. and his 308 gts, but also the film "Il sorpasso" with the Lancia Aurelia and the Fiat 2400 Coupè which challenge each other in an extraordinary overtaking. Our gt4 had been the main character of a television event, too. This is not such an important event as the other I have quoted before but the car was a star of the filmic set. The film is an italian commedy of the eighties, directed by Carlo and Enrico Vanzina, "I Fichissimi", with Diego Abatantuono, Jerry Calà and others. In the film we can clearly see, in different scenes, a blue gt4 with bright nearsides which had also been the victim of a bad accident caused by an inexpert driver.
Regarding famous owners of the Dino we can list, at this moment in time, only Elvis, about whom I have already talked in the "history" section.