HERE’S SOME I MADE EARLIER
Gian Paolo Dallara could be Italy’s best-kept racing secret. Here’s why…
YOU COULD SAY that Gian Paolo Dallara owns motor racing, but somehow that description seems wholly insufficient. With most modern-day categories being one-make series, Dallara builds cars for every major championship on the planet, from Formula 3 to IndyCar via all things in-between. And by that, we mean all the cars. Then you have to factor in his behind-the-scenes contributions to some of the greatest sports-prototypes of the past two decades (think Audi). Save for Formula 1, there are few arenas of motor racing that he hasn’t conquered.
All of which is lightyears removed from when he started out at Ferrari in 1959 as an aeronautical engineering graduate. Dallara subsequently jumped ship to Maserati and then Lamborghini, where he initially worked on developing the 350GT’s chassis and gearbox. He was also tasked with turning Giotto Bizzarrini’s V12 engine design into something fit for a roadgoing gran turismo.
He lent his engineering skills to a raft of other models during the 1960s before designing a Formula 2 car for Alessandro de Tomaso. This in turn led to a position as technical director. That, and a Formula 1 bid with the Frank Williams-run 505 in 1970. Dallara also designed the chassis for the Pantera supercar before moving on to assist with the development of the Lancia Stratos.
After establishing Dallara Automobili in 1972, the designer also became a businessman – and a shrewd one at that. Constructing sports-racers for the local market brought in much-needed lire . The small factory in Varano de’ Melegari near Parma soon became a hive of activity, while Dallara continued to act as a consultant to mainstream manufacturers.
During the 1970s, he developed the Fiat X1/9 Group 5 racer that inspired Lancia’s competition chief Cesare Fiorio to commission the construction of the Beta Montecarlo Group 5 car – which claimed the 1980 World Championship for Makes. It marked the first international title for a Dallara-designed car and spawned the LC1 Group 6 car and LC2 Group C weapon.
Scroll forward to 1994, and Dallara’s firm was given the job of designing what became the Ferrari 333SP. That’s the very sports-prototype that claimed 56 wins into the following decade.
The 333SP was primarily targeted at the US, and it was via client/racer Andy Evans that Dallara was granted an entrée to Indy principal, Tony George, in the mid’90s. Champ Car racing was in the midst of a controversial split, and George commissioned the construction of 15 new Dallara single-seaters for the new IRL breakaway series, plus 15 from rival constructor G-Force. Eddie Cheever won the Indy 500 in 1998, which marked the first victory for an Italian marque at this legendary venue for 58 years.
Dallara wasn’t done with road cars, though. Over the past two decades, his firm has played a role in the creation of everything from the KTM X-Bow to the Bugatti Veyron via the Maserati MC12 and the Alfa Romeo 8C. The football-obsessed engineering great shows no sign of slowing down, either. We would be disappointed were it otherwise.