Engines can be used for many different tasks. The displacement can be changed, cylinders added or removed, and it is not unusual for two engines to be put together to create something quite different. The 900hp Cosworth V12 which will be seen in the Adrian Newey-designed Aston Martin AM-RB 001 supercar, for example, can trace its roots back to Porsche, which created a 60-degree V6 engine back in the early 1990s, but then decided not to use it for production cars. The design was sold to Ford and the resulting engine was the Ford Duratec V6, an aluminum unit with dual overhead camshafts. The designers at Cosworth, which was then owned by Ford, then mated two of these engines end-to-end and created the 6-litre V12, which ended up belonging to Cosworth and being used by Aston Martin in its 1999 DB7 Vantage.
It’s a complex industry…
Enzo Ferrari’s son Alfredo, known as Dino, had a tragically short career as an automobile engineer. Trained in various schools in finance, economics and engineering, Dino was supposed to succeed his father. He never finished his engineering studies, stopping after two years, because of illness. The family legend suggests that it was Dino who first suggested that Ferrari build a small-capacity V6 racing engine, at the end of 1955. Others say that the idea probably came from Vittorio Jano, who had already created the first production V6 engine, working on the Lancia Aurelia with Ettore Zaccone Mina, but that Dino Ferrari thought it was a good idea.
Dino died in June 1956, at the age of 24, and never saw the finished engine. It was a 65-degree 1.5-litre dual overhead camshaft V6. This was to form the basis of the company’s modern V6 engines right up until the mid 2000s.
This engine was first raced in Luigi Musso’s Ferrari 156 in the non-championship F1 Gran Premio di Napoli at Posillipo at the end of April 1957. Musso finished third behind the Lancia-Ferraris of Peter Collins and Mike Hawthorn. The following year the engine appeared in 2.4-litre form in the 246 Formula 1 car, the first V6 in F1. This was strong enough to win the 1958 French GP at Reims, in the hands of Mike Hawthorn. The engine was also seen in 2-litre form in the Ferrari 206S sports car and in 3.2-litre form in the Ferrari 326 MI, which Phil Hill drove in the one-off Monza 500 Miles, against visiting American machinery. The engine would continue to appear in F2 and when F1 switched to 1.5-litre regulations in 1961, the Dino V6 would be the engine that gave Ferrari another Formula 1 World Championship, with Phil Hill and Wolfgang Von Trips fighting for the title. In 1961 the 2.4-litre version appeared in the 246 SP, the first mid-engined Ferrari and in the mid 1960s in the Dino 166P and its successors the 206 S and 206 SP sports cars. The engine was then re-engineered by Aurelio Lampredi and was used in a series of production cars, beginning with the 1968 Dino 206 GT and the Fiat Dino.
After Ferrari production ended, the 2.4-litre version of the engine was handed over to Lancia and powered the Lancia Stratos rally car, which enjoyed huge success in the World Rally Championship in the course of the 1970s, winning titles in 1974, 1975 and 1976 in the hands of Sandro Munari and Bjorn Waldegard, including three wins on the Monte Carlo Rally.
joeblogsf1 
Another really fascinating fact. Although the engine was probably in the front of Musso’s 156 in 1957 🙂
“This engine was first raced in the back of Luigi Musso’s Ferrari 156 in the non-championship F1 Gran Premio di Napoli at Posillipo at the end of April 1957.”
Surely that should be “in the front of”?
Really enjoying this series, Joe. Thanks!
Bolting two engines together has been tried before: the 1935 Alfa Romeo 16C Bimotore had two 3.2 litre engines; one for each rear axle! It was raced in several Grand Prix including at Avus. But it proved a bit complex (to say the least) to achieve a decent balance between performance, fuel consumption and reliability.
Let us not forget the infamous Porsche 3512 V12 engine for 1991, which looked very much like 2 TAG TTE V6 engine blocks and heads joined together, with the drive taken from the middle of the engine. It was big, long, and horrendously overweight, and did not even last a season before being replaced by a Ford DFR engine.
The first V6 configuration (engine) goes back to 1905 by Marmon.
The Lancia had a 6 pin crankshaft.
Not a production model I don’t believe
I’ve read the V12 is a bespoke engine built by Cosworth rather than something based on the existing Aston V12. I think the car will be incredible but I’m not so sure of the point, it’s simply too fast for the road or your average Joe to be able to use to its full potential (even on a track), still I wouldn’t say no to one.
Joe, was this the basis for the late 60s to early 70s F2 engine which was run in the Tasman series at 2.4l with Chris Amon Derek Bell and then Graeme Lawrence?
I don’t know
You mean the Cosworth DFW? No, that was a reduced capacity version of the DFV, and was a 2.5 not a 2.4. Most of those units were reconverted back to DFV -spec once Tasman went F5000…
Think Abo’s asking about the Ferrari 2.4 V6 engine?
Ah, right. Mention of Amon and Bell in the same breath sent my mind off toward the March 701, but of course the Dino 246T is what was meant! Apologies. In that case, yes, the engine was indeed based on the (by then 11-year-old) 65 degree V6. One came up for sale at Bonham’s a few years back.
Fascinating article Joe, Incan also recall the BRM H16. Combining 2 Cosworth V-8s was an engineering marvel but did not enjoy success however. And let’s not forget about Jack Brabham running a Mini Cooper at the Targa with an engine in the boot and another in the bonnet. While not combined, it did show a certain flare of imaginative engineering.
Eh? I think if you had suggested to Tony Rudd and his crew that they needed to buy in expertise from Cosworth you would have been met with short shrift! The H16 was an in-house job adapted from their own very successful 1.5L V8.
Hello John, Your memory serves you well ! Indeed, short shrift from Mr. Rudd would be an understatement ! That said, the H-16 has always stood out to me as on of the the ultimate “garagista” solutions.
I suspect that aforementioned short shrift might also have been in store had you called BRM ‘garagiste’, and I’m pretty sure that Ingenere Ferrari didn’t have them in mind when he coined the term. The Bourne team were a very high quality engineering outfit, with a large proportion of their folks (including Rudd himself) having come out of the aerospace industry. Their factory was no garage…
Jim Clark won the 1966 US Grand Prix using the BRM H16 ia a Lotus 43 I think that counts as enjoyed success. The only highlight in the engines brief carreer.
Re: the production cars, sometime in the mid-70’s I learned of a Fiat Dino that could be bought for 2,000 US dollars, here in Austin. At the time, it was a miracle that such a car would have been in this area. It would have made a nice step up from my Triumph Spitfire but alas, as a student working part-time I wasn’t able to buy it. One of those things you always wish you could have done something about….
Ah the Lancia Stratos. A truly magnificent car, world beating, beautiful and still highly desirable.
As a side issue, the Ferrari Dino was the car that, as a 5 year old at the time, really got me interested in cars and subsequently racing cars. I saw Tony Curtis drive one in the TV series The Persuaders, and wanted one more than I wanted my next breath. It was through that and supercars that I eventually became interested in motor racing and Formula 1. I still think the Ferrari Dino is one of the most beautiful cars ever made and to this day I still want one…………..
Uhhm Joe…. I was under the impression that the AM RB-001 was using a different engine than the rest of the Astons. Do you have good info that they will just tune up the regular v12 they already use?
I don’t think Ferrari was still producing “modern V6s” up to the mid-2000s…..the turbo F1 (first time around) which last ran in 1988 owed nothing to the old Dino, the 246 Dino was last made in 1974, and even the last in the line, the Stratos, stopped in 1978.