Ferrari Dino 246: The Ferrari That Wasn't Allowed to Say Ferrari

A genuinely excellent sports car, deliberately badged to distance it from its own maker's name — a decision that seems almost unthinkable by today's branding standards.

Illustration for editorial purposes

Protecting the Brand by Hiding the Brand

Most manufacturers want their most desirable badge on every car they can justify it on. Ferrari did the opposite here, deliberately, to protect the exclusivity of its flagship V12 models.

Even Enzo Ferrari Wasn't Sold on It at First

Introduced in 1969, the Dino's V6 engine used a configuration developed with input from Enzo Ferrari's late son Alfredo "Dino" Ferrari, after whom the sub-brand was named. Ferrari made the deliberate decision to sell it without the prancing horse badge, positioning it as a distinct marque so this smaller, less expensive V6 car wouldn't dilute the exclusivity built around the company's V12 flagships — a decision that, according to Pininfarina's own account, very nearly didn't happen at all. Enzo Ferrari reportedly rejected the design outright when he first saw it, deciding it simply wasn't "Ferrari" enough; it took direct convincing from Sergio Pininfarina himself to get the shape approved for production. It went on to become Ferrari's first mid-engined road car built in genuinely large numbers, a layout that was still relatively novel for a road car at the time and gave it handling balance that reviewers of the era praised extensively.

Why the Steel Body Rusts From the Inside Out

Rust is universally cited as the Dino's single biggest enemy, and the mechanism is genuinely worth understanding before buying one. Unlike the earlier, all-aluminium 206 GT, the 246 switched to a steel body and frame with aluminium doors and bonnet — and that steel corrodes from the inside out, hidden inside box sections and panel cavities where moisture gets trapped between the underbody protection and the tubular chassis. A car can look flawless on the surface while hiding serious structural corrosion underneath, particularly around the lower door sections, the sills, the windscreen pillars, and the sandwiched panels behind the rear wheels. Because values have climbed so far, ground-up restorations are now common rather than the exception, which makes a proper on-hoist inspection by a Dino specialist genuinely essential rather than a nice-to-have.

The Dinoplex Ignition and Other Things to Check

Beyond bodywork, the Dino's Dinoplex ignition system — one of the first production capacitive discharge systems, developed by Magneti Marelli originally for Ferrari's racing department — is a known quirk worth understanding: a missing transformer hum when the ignition switches on often points to a faulty power transistor, and it's specialist territory rather than something a general mechanic will be familiar with. Cooling is the other recurring theme; the car should run around 195°F, and anything climbing toward 225°F signals a problem, often traced to electrical gremlins in the cooling fans or a water pump needing a rebuild every 30,000 miles or so. The good news is the V6 itself and its twin timing chains have a genuinely strong reputation for durability — as one specialist puts it, catastrophic chain failure is essentially unheard of — so most Dino ownership costs trace back to bodywork and ancillaries rather than the engine itself.

From "Budget Ferrari" to Six-Figure Classic

The Dino's reputation has undergone a genuine transformation over the decades, moving from what collectors once dismissed as a "budget almost-Ferrari" to a thoroughly respected Maranello classic in its own right — and prices have followed. A good 246 GT today typically trades in the region of £220,000-£340,000, with the rarer GTS Targa-top version commanding a modest premium over the coupe, and the earlier, aluminium-bodied 206 GT — of which just 152 left-hand-drive examples were ever built — sitting higher still for anyone able to find one. Whatever badging debate surrounded it at launch has long since been settled in the car's favour: today it's discussed, bought, and valued as a Ferrari in every meaningful sense.

Generations at a Glance

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Sources: Ferrari Classiche archives, Wikipedia.