Of course there are examples of a race engine going into a street car. The
one that might be of most interest to vintage buffs is the Fiat/Ferrari
Dino. The entire car was produced just so the motor could qualify to be
put in a Ferrari F2 race car. Ferrari didn't have the capacity to build
500 units a year (even with typical Italian serial number hijinks), so
Fiat was engaged to build more cars, just to satisfy the FIA that the motor
came out of a "street" car when it had been designed for racing all along.
There has been considerable discussion on the Alfa Digest in past years
about the Montreal. The consensus was that the V8 in the Montreal was not
really a detuned version of the T33 race motor. The Stradale model is the
only one that can really make that claim. They were not really intended
to be raced, although some have. The T33 motor in the Stradale is
basically the same as the one used at Le Mans. Ever seen the film "Le Mans"?
There's a T-33/3 in the hunt right behind the Ferrari/Porsche duel. It
actually came in 4th overall in the 1972 race, AHEAD of all the Ferraris.
In the American Pig Iron category, there are plenty of examples of high
performance "options" being on the price list just so the company could
build race cars with those options.
WSpohn4@aol.com wrote:
>
> >From another list where we are discussing an issue I raised, and one that the
> members of this group might find interesting.
>
> I have just become the owner of an older Lamborghini, and so have been
> researching all the technical fun stuff about that marque.
>
> One of the interesting things I came up with was how the engine was designed.
> Bizzarini was commissioned to build a completely new 4 cam V-12 to outdo
> Ferrari. He produced a prototype, and told old Ferruchio that the 3.5 litre
> engine put out over 350 bhp at 9500 rpm, but that with larger Webers, he was
> confident of 400 bhp at 11,000 rpm - pretty good showing in the early 60s.
>
> At that point, Ferruchio sprung the news on Bizzarini that he really just
> wanted a street engine, and told him to detune it for a power peak of 7000
> rpm (after which Bizzarini quit to go design race engines elsewhere).
>
> Here's the trivia part - it got us thinking about racing engines in general.
> The typical history of a race engine is that it is developed from an existing
> street engine, by making it reliable and making it more efficient.
>
> We got to wondering how many other backwards examples there were, of a design
> that was built specifically with racing in mind finding it's way into a
> street car.
>
> Other than the Lambo, I came up with the Alfa Montreal, which had a larger
> detuned version of the Alfa T-33 V-8 race engine, and the 4 cam Porsches,
> which were built at first only as race engines in the 550s and such, before
> finding their way into the Carreras later on.
>
> Question then - does anyone else know of a case where the pure race engine
> ended up going into a street car.
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