Delivering a Dino, back in the day

YOUR EXCELLENT Dino cover feature in Octane 180 reminded me of driving the Dino 246GT that belonged to my late, much-missed boss.

In the late ’70s and early ’80s, Bob Graves used to ask me if I would mind (!) taking his Dino the 35 miles from our Kenley office to Maranello Concessionaires for a service.

I would set off in the Dino while a willing colleague valiantly tried to keep up in my company Talbot Alpine. We’d then stop in a lay-by en route so I could give my accomplice a quick blast up the road and back, then complete our journey, driving back to Kenley together afterwards.

The Dino seemed to me to be blindingly fast but in actual fact it only produced 195bhp (or, according to your article, perhaps only 160). My current Audi TT Mk1 3.2 has 250bhp!

In those days, Maranello Concessionaires believed they were doing you a big favour in accepting very large sums of money to attend to your Ferrari. On one occasion, just as I was leaving their car park after collecting Bob’s Dino, the Perspex headlight cover fell off. I ran over it and smashed it to smithereens. At first Maranello refused to believe they could have been culpable but I stood my ground and eventually they rather grudgingly replaced it.

Bob bought the Dino in 1973 from Roy Salvadori’s Elmbridge Motors on the Tolworth roundabout. It was secondhand but nearly new and with a very low mileage. Unlike his Fiat 124 Coupé and Alfa 1750 GTV, which early in their lives were visibly very rusty, the Dino always looked good. However, beneath the surface it was rotten and it underwent restoration when barely ten years old.

The work was evidently done well, as Bob kept his Dino until sadly he passed away in 2012. Simon Carter, Berkshire

According to his obituary in The Daily Telegraph, Bob Graves was also a keen motorcyclist; in later life, having had a very successful career in micro-electronics, he won a number of British air races flying his SIAI-Marchetti, and he raced in Formula 3. Mark Dixon