The Dino 206 S waiting for me in the pit garage at Donington Park is so delicate, so preposterously beautiful, it seems impossible the car was designed for the rough and—all too often back then—tumble of racing. It seems no less implausible that it was once raced by drivers who cared only how fast it could go, and nothing at all for preserving any aspect of the car’s design or engineering one nanosecond longer than required to get them to the checkered flag at the end of the race or, no less often, mountain.
Furthermore, it seems barely believable that the best aerodynamic shape Piero Drogo’s famed carrozzeria could come up with was also one that would have drawn every eye in every paddock it visited. The only reason I think the Ferrari 330 P3 (whose outline the Dino mimics) looks better is because it’s bigger, and thus has more presence. So let’s just settle for the 206 S being the second most gorgeous racing car ever created.
So what is this Dino, exactly? It had two intended purposes, and one shared goal. The former were to compete in the European Hillclimb Championship—which in the mid-1960s was a very big deal, indeed—and in those rounds of the World Sports Car Championship not suited to Ferrari’s bigger, heavier V12 cars. The goal in both cases was to beat Porsche, which, alas, wasn’t achieved. Lodovico Scarfiotti won some hillclimbs in 1966, but was ultimately beaten by Gerhard Mitter’s Porsche 906. On the sports-car circuit that year, Giancarlo Baghetti (still the only person to win a World Championship Grand Prix on his debut) and Jean Guichet’s second place overall in the Targa Florio, behind a 906, and Scarfiotti and Lorenzo Bandini’s identical result at the Nürburgring 1,000 kms. (beaten this time by a thundering Chaparral) was the closest a 206 S would come to outright victory.
Commercially, this Dino was not a success. Ferrari derived it from the 206 SP, which had won the hillclimb title in ’65, and the plan was to build the 50 units required to homologate it for Group 4 racing—hence the missing “P” for Prototipo. In the end, however, just 18 examples were made (forcing the car to race in the Prototype class after all). Of those, 13 had open spider bodywork, which is just as well for me, as I’d have no hope in hell of squeezing into the coupe.
Mechanically, and like almost all Ferrari racing cars of that and many eras before and since, the 206 S was conservative in its design. Its body is a mix of aluminum and fiberglass panels clothing a tubular spaceframe. There are double wishbone suspension units at each corner, plain disc brakes, and fat Dunlop tires.
Here, and unsurprisingly for a competition Ferrari of the era, the engine is everything. It’s the V6 in which Alfredo “Dino” Ferrari had some design involvement before his untimely death, aged just 24, in 1956, tragically before it had run for the first time. Enzo’s son had worked with chief engineer Vittorio Jano, who finished the engine, which made its racing debut in 1957.
It was this supremely versatile V6 that carried Mike Hawthorn to the Formula 1 World Championship the following year. Supremely versatile in that it was used in F1 and F2 cars, sports-racers like the 206 S, hillclimb cars, Tasman cars, Fiat and Ferrari road cars, and was even still winning rounds of the World Rally Championship in 1981 under the engine cover of the Lancia Stratos.
Over that time, the Dino came in a bewildering number of cubic capacities, from as small as 1,489 cc to almost double that size, at 2,962 cc. It was equipped with two, three, and four valves per cylinder, with carburetors and fuel injection, but always featured four overhead camshafts and one telling detail: a 65° angle between its cylinder banks.
This was done simply to create space for optimal shaping of the inlet ducts, and compensated for by offset crankpins to create an even firing order. Unconventional though it was, there was clearly something to be said for the layout; Ferrari reintroduced the 65° angle in the V12 developed for the 456 GT in 1992, and has used it for every V12 road car it’s made since. (It’s also the angle of the Cosworth V12s found in the Aston Martin Valkyrie and Gordon Murray Automotive’s T.50.) But the Dino engine remains the only 65° V6 ever made.
THIS PARTICULAR 206 S (S/N 032) WAS THE VERY LAST ONE MADE. It was restored by Ferrari Classiche over a two-year period, during which time it was found to have matching chassis, body, and gearbox numbers, and so given full certification by the factory, confirming it to be correct in every detail.
As the very last of those 18 cars, it’s fitting that this one comes with the ultimate specification of the 2-liter V6, producing some 270 bhp with Lucas fuel injection. If you think that’s not bad for a naturally aspirated engine that’s nearly 60 years old, know that its specific output is comparable to the best Formula 1 engines of the era. Or, if that doesn’t sound like much power, it’s perhaps worth noting Ferrari states the 206 S weighs just 1,279 pounds, meaning that each horsepower only has to motivate 4.7 lbs. With the new Amalfi weighing in at 5.1 lbs. per pony, the Dino is unlikely to be a slouch.
The longer I stand next to the 206 S, however, the less I want to drive it. It seems too fragile, and, with a value somewhere north of $5.5 million, it’s certainly too precious—especially to be out on track with all those slick-shod, bewinged, modern machines and their hotshot drivers on a race car-only test day. It’s a given the Dino will be the slowest car, and if I just leave it where it is, snug and warm in the garage, no harm can come to it—or me, for that matter. Did I mention it doesn’t have seat belts?
Still, duty calls. And besides, an old family friend, the late Mike Salmon, shared one of these cars with David Hobbs at Le Mans in 1966 and absolutely adored it, despite the Dino being utterly unsuited to the circuit. So, I slide down the narrow channel until I’m fully ensconced in the cockpit.
That’s when I discover, to my astonishment, that the tiny Dino is not very tiny inside; I actually fit quite comfortably. Yes, I look ridiculous with my head projecting comically far above the superstructure, but if I climbed out of every racing car over a fear of looking silly, most of my fondest memories from this job would never have been formed.
The V6 starts by turning a key and pressing a button—and I immediately realize I’ve made my first mistake, namely firing it up inside the garage. You simply wouldn’t believe such noise could possibly be created with a swept volume of just 1,987 cubic centimeters; it sounds like a million ball bearings have been dropped from the sky onto a thin metal floor and started bouncing. Thank heavens Max Girardo, whose company graciously invited me here today, saw me donning my helmet and suggested I insert some earplugs first.
I look around as I let heat build within the lunatic asylum behind my head. The gear lever sits in Ferrari’s traditional open gate, although here it seems to have been designed by someone from Lilliput. If I look
into its depths, I can see the machinery of the devilishly clever interlock system, which means you can only select the gear immediately above or below the one you’re in, making it essentially impossible to wrong slot it.
Why did no one else use such a system? I have no idea. Maybe it was mechanical complexity (Salmon and Hobbs failed to finish their ’66 Le Mans race due to transmission failure), maybe it was weight, or maybe both? At the time, Porsche used synchromesh, which added mass and slowed the shift but reduced the chance of a driver damaging the gearbox for an entirely different set of reasons.
Anyway, ahead lie beautiful old Veglia dials: a 10,000-rpm rev counter with no redline flanked by small gauges for oil and fuel pressure. Water temperature is to the right of the latter, oil temperature and amperage to the left of the former. For the hands, what else than a Momo Monza wheel, with three drilled aluminum spokes and a well-worn leather rim? There’s a big air vent down to my right, which must have served some purpose in the five 206 S coupes.
With all the needles now pointing in the right direction, I slot the gear lever into first and ease out of the pits. Make that growl out of the pits, for that’s what this engine does at idling speed. It sounds quite like a V12, albeit one with a 40-cigarettes-a-day habit. It’s more Janis Joplin than Mariah Carey, which works for me.
I join the track just in time for a British Touring Car Championship Toyota to come screaming down the inside to beat me to my first apex of the day. Thankfully, a rudimentary mirror has been lashed to the inside of the Dino’s windshield; without it, I’d have parked up at the first marshal’s post and climbed out.
The V6’s growl becomes a snarl as the revs rise, and the engine sound hardens. There’s so much to think about—things like the new (and currently cold) tires, other track users, keeping off the curbs, managing the revs—that all the other stuff I would normally be thinking about—such as the 206 S’s value, structural integrity put to shame by a cardboard box, those absent seat belts—gets discarded. Out here, it serves no purpose at all other than to distract me from the job. So I forget it, and go.
No one told me how many revs to use, but my research suggests top whack for one of these motors is around 8,800 rpm, so I’ll be keeping at least a grand shy of that. But, damn, these people knew how to build an engine! I’d expected essentially nothing but noise below 6,000 rpm, but in fact it’s pulling like the world’s smallest, noisiest freight train from 4,000. And while the noise may not be quite as hauntingly beautiful as Ferrari’s racing V12s of the period, I’d say the V6’s gruffer, tougher edge actually makes it more characterful—a heresy to some, no doubt, but they’re not sitting where I am. It makes me laugh out loud just at the joy, as well as the sheer sense of dumb luck that I get to control its voice.
Soon I’m piling on the power, pouring heat into those brand-new Dunlops, and waiting for the moment when the Dino does something I’m not expecting. This happens quite often when track testing cars of various ages, sizes, outputs, and designs, because this is no more than speed dating. So I’m always alert for that moment after which things will never be quite the same again—like the time a lady, on our first evening out together, cheerfully mentioned that her father would happily break the kneecaps of any young man she felt had disrespected her.
In the 206 S, that moment never comes. So I go harder and faster, flicking it into corners and playing with the throttle, and all it says back is, “More, please.” My self-imposed rev limit now seems ridiculously conservative, the engine so utterly in its element above 7,000 rpm that I feel it would happily spin into five figures given the slightest opportunity. The gear lever finds its next slot without conscious thought from me, the pedal placement for heel-and-toe downshifts is unimprovable. The steering is essentially perfect—heavier than I expected, full of feel, and unfailingly linear in its reactions—the brakes strong, the car stable under them.
What surprises me most is the grip; there’s just so much of it. You can’t help but make certain assumptions when first looking at this tiny old car, but now consider how light it is, how well located each wheel is on its double wishbone suspension, how low the center of gravity must be even with me on board, and just how much racing rubber connects it all to the tarmac. Suddenly, the fact it generates lateral adhesion of a level no normal road car could imagine is not so surprising, after all. It’s completely logical.
Now, at last, I start to really understand the Dino 206 S. Though it will do so, this is not a car for sliding around; instead, it is a precision instrument, because that’s what was required to climb a mountain pass faster than anyone else. I understand entirely how, at tracks like the Nürburgring and at the Targa Florio, which prioritize handling above all, this diminutive Dino made large-engine contemporaries like the Ford GT40 look like floundering elephants.
Most of all, I understand why Salmon and those lucky enough to make the Dino 206 S’s acquaintance in period fell in love with it. Other machines may have been faster, but driving experiences come no purer or more deeply, profoundly satisfying than this.
Special thanks to Donington Park and the fine folks at Girardo & Co. for making this feature possible.
